


cryptid

by chaotichimbo



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst and Humor, Drama & Romance, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/F, F/M, Fist Fights, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, No Smut, POV First Person, Romance, Soulmates, Violence, bad boy/good girl trope but the genders are reversed so it’s good, i can’t believe I wrote this, i put my blood and soul into this fic, pulling reverse uno card on sexism in this fic, this is good read it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:20:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 37
Words: 154,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotichimbo/pseuds/chaotichimbo
Summary: There's something off about the little reservation Remy Cree lives on; she knew it the day her brother went missing. And she's going to find out what it is.
Relationships: Embry Call/Original Female Character(s), Jared Cameron/Kim Connweller, Leah Clearwater/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 62





	1. chapter one: the woods

There were things about this town that were  _ off.  _ It wasn't hard to notice: the  _ unusual  _ number of animal deaths by animals they could never name, the bare human footprints in the depths of the woods, the missing hikers, the lack of answers from the town, well-dressed people that seemed to have some knowing glint in their eyes. But no one paid attention, not the wrinkly skinned old men with heavy white beards or the mothers with young children on their hips. It's like they didn't  _ want _ to notice. They shed tears at the strange deaths of the people they knew but never asked for answers. They had search parties for those who disappeared behind the thickness of the trees but never asked what else could be in there. No one asked the right questions, no one even thought to.

I did, though. I knew there was something wrong. I first noticed this unsettling  _ wrongness  _ when my brother disappeared. My brother, with heavy laugh that rung in your ears, disappeared into the woods smelling of whiskey and weed and came out a pile of bones. They told us it was suicide. My father cried, shoulders shaking at the death of his oldest, but I stood in our backyard and stared into the woods because I knew there was something in there that did that to him, because he would never do it to himself.

I noticed it again when the boys in my classes who never looked me in the eye started dropping out of school. They would walk on our dirt roads with bare feet and walk out of the prickly woods with no cuts. They jumped off cliffs and surfaced unscathed, with hearty laughs that ricocheted off the cliff walls.

There were noises from the woods that kept me up at night and thunder when there was no storm. Bodies disappeared and police found bare human footprints in the winter. And while the people around me grieved and then forgot, I watched.

I kept track of it all. I isolated and hide from others. I obsessed over police logs and newspaper articles and kept them all in a journal, with a list of theories and the death count of hikers and civilians in the area. Because I  _ knew  _ there was an explanation for the death of the people who entered in the woods behind my house and I knew that it was hiding under my nose. When I looked out into them, I could feel it, like something was looking back at me, challenging me to come and find it.

The day I went looking for it was the one-year anniversary of when my brother went missing. Three things went wrong that day.

First, I lost my book. Another one of the freshmen boys had disappeared, dropping out of school and becoming something different. I heard it from the whispers of the students around me;  _ Seth Clearwater dropped out. Apparently he's being home-schooled now.  _ He was the sixth Quileute boy to drop out and become 'home-schooled' since my freshmen year. And all six of those same boys hung around in the same spots in town, wearing the same thing with the same tattoos (yeah, they  _ did  _ give a fifteen-year-old kid a tattoo. I'm not sure how; but I know they all have them).

So, I shuffled through my things, looking for the thick, worn leather-bond journal that kept track of everything that was wrong in this reservation so I could mark down that another fifteen-year-old kid was abducted into some supernatural cult and illegally tattooed. But it was gone. There was a science book, a math one, and some Shakespeare compilation, but no journal. This could be bad for a number of reasons, the primary being that if I lost that book, I lost all bits of evidence and theories I had developed in the year of my researching. Also, anyone who found it and saw my name scribbled on the front cover would know that I am an absolute freak.

When the bell rang and spring break was officially commenced, I sprinted out of my chair and rushed towards my locker. I  _ always  _ had the journal. I  _ always  _ had the journal because there was always something wrong, something new to track in it. Like the induction of Seth Clearwater into whatever tomfoolery was going on with the Quiluete dropouts (which was  _ important  _ because he was the youngest one they got so far). But it wasn't in my locker either. I tried to rack my brain for that mornings events to remember if I had left it at home, but I  _ knew  _ I put it in my bag, which meant it could be anywhere.

The second thing that went wrong was Kim Conweller came up and talked to me. "Hey, Remy," she called, and I slammed my locker shut at the sound of her voice. "I can't cover for you tonight."

" _ What? _ C'mon, Kim, you promised." Kim and I had a very strange but long-lasting and surprisingly strong friendship. Our bond didn't come from childhood memories or similar interests and hobbies, but instead a continuous need to lie to our parents. Me, so I could set up cameras in the woods and drive to Port Angeles after school to buy strange books, and Kim so she could spend more time with her boyfriend (who, by the way, was one of the six Quiluete dropouts, and I had a suspicion she knew what was going on with them). And sometimes, when we were both bored enough, we would get pizza and drink wine she stole from her parents.

This type of friendship had gone on for six years, without either one of us ever bailing out. Until  _ now. _

"Look," Kim said, shifting weight between her feet like she was nervous, "I just don't think it's a good idea to go out into the woods alone, alright? Like, it's not safe."

"According to who?" She didn't answer, just looked away from me with a little eye roll. "C'mon, Kim, you've covered for me before. I'll bring bear mace."

Kim leaned against the lockers and looked at me with pleading eyes. "You've never camped out all night before. I just don't think it's a good idea. Why don't you just like, come over and we'll drink and watch some Bigfoot documentary or something?"

I bit my lip. "It's a full moon. The stars are really gonna be out tonight; I really don't wanna miss it. We can do that tomorrow night."

Yeah, that was the excuse I gave to Kim. Whenever I snuck out at night and needed to cover, I told Kim I liked  _ astronomy,  _ and I needed to track the stars. I told her my parents were paranoid and wouldn't let me go out on my own, even if it was something as simple as stargazing, which was  _ true. _ I didn't think telling Kim I was investigating her boyfriend and his friends in my several working conspiracies about the town.

I didn't feel bad lying to Kim, because I knew there were things she probably wasn't telling me either.

"Look, if you wanna camp out in mountain-lion infested woods with nothing to protect you but a can of bear-mace, be my guest. But I'm not gonna lie to your parents for you. That being said, the Bigfoot offer still stands."

Kim turned and strutted away with those quick words, leaving me groaning against my locker.

I left the hallways with slumped shoulders, feeling defeated, and dragged my feet all the way back to my car, which has survived in my family tree since 1994. It was adorned with patches of rust and a bumper sticker that said,  _ HONK! if you love your Persian cat!  _ I had tried to peel it off, but to no avail. It was stuck on the back of my car forever, forcing me to be shocked by random and short  _ beeps  _ from people who love their Persian cat.

We didn't even have a cat.

The drive to my house from the campus was short and quiet and didn't leave me enough time to come up with a game plan. I pulled into our driveway with no ideas and dismal thoughts. Upstairs in my room was a backpack with the world's small tent, granola, and a video camera with a twenty-four hour battery I used all of my allowance to buy. They asked me,  _ Remy, what are you gonna do about this little setback? We don't wanna go to waste. _

"I don't know," I complained out loud and dropped my head on the steering wheel. Even if I were to find something out, to discover something extraordinary, all of the research I had done of the past year was lost, and there was nothing for me to compare it to. I groaned.

I turned my head to look at the dashboard, where I taped my brother's school picture. He was smiling his signature smile: charming and sweet. Bear always had something about him that was so inviting; you just wanted to be his friend. I wasn't sure if it was the dimple under his eye or the warmness in his eyes. But it was something.

My fingers reached up to the photo. "I'm gonna figure out what happened to you," I whispered, and in a brilliant moment of sorrow-induced brainstorming, I had a bad idea.

Kim was the only number I had saved on my phone besides my family's. She answered on the third ring. "Hey, Rem."

"Hey, Kim. I uh, I think you were right. It's kinda dumb to stay out in the woods all night alone. Do you mind if I just come over instead, like you said?"

"Ugh, yes, thank god. If you had actually done something stupid like that I might've killed you myself."

I chuckled. "Heh. Yeah. I'll be over in like a few hours. I just have to like, run some errands for my mom first. Okay?"

"Yeah, I'll see ya," she replied, and promptly hung up.

I threw my phone back into my bag and exhaled. This was going to take some careful steps.

Step one: tell my parents.

Before Bear died, our house was typically messy, with random clothing articles strewn across the furniture and there was an ever-present smell of my dad's work boots that drifted into every corner of every room. My mom never cooked; we were more of a takeout every night type of family. But then, when we got the news, something switched in my mother, and she spent almost every minute of her time at home cleaning, disinfecting, and making some sort of food. She wasn't very  _ good  _ at it, but I guess the continued effort was what really counted.

She was pulling something burning out of the oven when I stepped through the door. The smoke practically hit me in the face when I stepped through the front door. "Jesus, Mom, what are you making?"

Her hair was flying out of its ponytail, sticking straight up. She looked distressed, which is typical for her cooking. "Well I  _ was  _ baking a casserole for Sue Clearwater. Her husband just died, and I thought it would be nice to bring it over. But I guess I could just order them a pizza," she trailed off, batting the smoke with an oven mitt. I made a mental note to add the death of Harry Clearwater to my book whenever I found it.

I leaned against the kitchen counter. "I heard her son's gonna be homeschooled from now on."

"Oh, well, he's such a…a sweet boy…probably…hit him hard," she grunted, losing the battle to the smoke. "Will you go open all the windows before the smoke detector goes off?"

"Sure," I replied, pushing off the counter. I walked from window to window, pushing them open and trying to push some of the smoky air out with it. The smoky smell was infuriating my brain. "God, what kind of casserole was this?"

"Fish!" she called back at me. Someone had to give this woman cooking lessons. This was just abysmal.

Once I had flung open the windows, I made my way back to my frazzled mother. "So, I think I'm gonna go sleepover Kim's tonight. She invited me over for a movie marathon."

My mother hummed. "I don't know, Remy. I think it might be a good night for all of us to stick together."

I inhaled sharply. This was the reply I was waiting for. "I mean, I guess. I just kind of wanted to, get my mind off of things. Distract myself from getting sad, and just," I look around the smoky house and then down at the ground before speaking again, "it's just hard to be home right now."

Now, I felt like shit for pulling this on my mother, my poor, emotionally vulnerable mother who was just trying to protect the last living kid she had, but I just felt in my gut that tonight was the night I was finally gonna uncover  _ something.  _ So, I had to pull out the big guns, because I had to know what happened to Bear.

And I knew it worked when my mother let out a pained, "Oh honey," and pulled me into a hug. "You have fun with Kim tonight. It'll be nice for your father and I to have a quiet night together, anyways." She pulled out of the hug and looked at me with watery eyes. "Just be safe, alright?"

I gave her a strained smile. "I will, Mom. I promise."

Step one was completed.

Step two would be easier, and involve a lot less lying, but would be considerably more time consuming.

After receiving the blessing from my mother, I ran to my room and grabbed my little camping bag, filled with probably insufficient supplies, and tossed it out the window. I then filled a different and smaller bag with sweatpants and a toothbrush, and walked out the front door, shouting my goodbye to my mother.

I retrieved my camping back from the bushes outside my bedroom window and threw it in the trunk of my car. If there's one thing I learned from my years of living in a highly wooded area, it's that you never want to set up a tent after dark. I mean, you could learn that even from like, one single survival show, but still.

I drove my little car to the spot I had picked just a few days before. It was just a little way off a hiking trail, a little clearing that allotted me enough space for my tent. It was a twenty-minute drive from my house if I went the speed limit, but I didn't, so I got there in fifteen.

From the mouth of the trail, it was a ten-minute walk down the cleared path, and another ten minutes  _ off  _ the path. I had successfully made this walk three times before, in sort of a test run. I used the compass on my phone to guide me.

Technology these days is great.

The grass in the clearing was brown and dead, and it itched my ankles as I dropped my backpack and started to set up. For amateurs, setting up a tent took about thirty minutes. For me, it took a cool and impressive twenty-five.

When the tent was set up, I got the bungee cords I had stored in my backpack and attacked my video camera to the top of the tent, ready to capture anything that passed by. Before I left, I turned it on a hit record.

And just like that, step-two was done, and by the time I got back into my car, it only took an hour and twenty minutes.

Which meant it was time for the longest and most exhausting step there would be, hanging out with Kim.

She was ready at the door by the time I got there with my very light sleepover bag. She swung open the door and said, "You have a leaf in your hair. Do you want a glass of wine?"

"No thanks," I brushed past her and made my way into her living room. "I don't think I'm gonna drink tonight," I said and plopped down on her couch.

"Oh, c'mon. Jared doesn't like it when I drink and I never get to do it anymore."

"So you let your boyfriend tell you what to do?"

She frowned, sitting next to me on the couch and unpausing the movie she had playing. "No, he just doesn't like it, so I don't' do it around him. I have to do it with you, because I'm not gonna drink alone."

Against my better judgement, I took the glass of wine out of her hand and took a little swig. I winced at the taste. White wine was disgusting. "Where is your beefcake boyfriend anyways? I thought you guys were like, virtually inseparable."

Ever since Kim started dating Jared, they had spent almost every second of free time together, and our wine and pizza nights abruptly came to an end. It's not that I really minded, it's not that we had them that often anyways. And, I didn't really blame her. She had been crushing on Jared for years before he finally started to pay attention to her. I was happy for Kim and her cult boyfriend.

"He's with his friends tonight," she said and snatched the glass of wine out of her hand.

I stretched out my limbs and laid on my stomach, looking up at Kim. "What do they even do anyways? Besides walk around the town without shoes on."

My question was innocent enough, but still, Kim shifted and took another sip before answering. "Hell if I know. I think they all like, play D&D together, or something like that."

I gaped at her. "You're telling me your boyfriend and his friends all take steroids and play fucking  _ Dungeons and Dragons  _ together?"

"They don't take steroids, Remy."

I shrugged. "Could've fooled me. Where's the bottle?"

"Kitchen counter."

I pushed off the couch and went to get my own glass. The sun was just setting, and I had plenty of time before Kim fell asleep, so I didn't think one would hurt. Besides, if I had one, Kim would have more, and probably fall asleep that much quicker. I poured a large glass.

Kim was lying upside down with her legs over the top of the couch by the time I got back. "Hey, Remy, if I asked you a question, would you be completely honest with me?"

"Hmmm, probably not. Why?"

She turned her head to look at me and her eyes were pleading. "Do you think that I've been a bad friend ever since I started dating Jared?"

I pursed my lips. For a moment, I thought about how I was using Kim as a cover to sneak out into the woods to investigate the death of my brother. I thought about the several working theories I had about her boyfriend and his little gang. I thought about the amount of lies I had told her even just tonight. "No, Kim. I don't think you're a bad friend. I just think you're in love."

She gave me a warm smile. "Thanks, Remy."

"Now can you please put on the Bigfoot documentary I was promised? I'm tired of watching  _ 27 Dresses." _

Hanging out with Kim was easy. It was  _ very  _ easy once she drank almost an entire bottle of white wine by herself, because I didn't really have to talk that much. It was actually almost a little concerning; she seemed a little eager to get her lips around the bottle, and didn't really care that I had spent the whole time working on one glass.

Kim talked a lot when she was drunk. She told me about how lonely she was when her parents weren't home, which seemed to be more and more often. She told me about Jared, and how much she loved him, but that he also seemed to be overly concerned about her safety to the point where he was hesitant about her having any fun. She also disclosed to me that Jared was  _ not _ my biggest fan. "It's not that he doesn't like you, I guess. He just thinks you're kinda weird, and worries you're not a good influence on me. But I mean, I'm kind of weird too, and I think you're really fun to be around," she told me when she was a little more than halfway done with her bottle, and I hadn't spoken in about twenty minutes.

I could kind of understand why Kim needed this bottle to herself.

She talked straight through the Bigfoot documentary, and then the Mothman one, and it wasn't until about halfway through the Goatman documentary, when she had plowed through the whole bottle, that her slurred speech started to slow and her eyes closed completely.

And just like that, step three was done.

There was a heavy darkness that settled when I stepped out the front door. It was almost midnight, and I knew Kim would be totally knocked out for the night, giving me a few hours to stake out my spot and mark things down in the fresh notebook I had.

Feeling brave, I drove to my campsite, bare mace in one pocket, and pocketknife in another.

When I arrived at the trail, the only light I had came from the bright screen of my phone. I used the flash it had to navigate my way to the tent. It took considerably longer than it did during the day, and the rocks I would normally avoid kept knocking me to my feet.

By time I got to the clearing, I had scraps on my hands and little pebbles stuck in my palm. Still, my tent was firmly planted in the middle of the clearing, with the camera still running, so I considered it a success so far.

I unzipped the tent and started to crawl into it, ready to wrap myself in the blanket I had left in there, when the third thing went wrong.

Behind me, there was a snap of a branch, and I whipped my head around to see what was there.

And what was  _ there  _ was a giant wolf, probably the size of a horse, with its lip furled back in a sinister snarl. A low growl ripped through the clearing, and my heart stopped in my throat. For a second, I stared at it, studying the chocolate brown coat it had and the large eyes and then finally it's sharp teeth that were probably larger than my nose.

It was the teeth that knocked me back into reality.

I feel on my ass and struggle to get the zipper up. Once I did, I scurried to the edge of the tent and reached into my pocket for the half-full can of bear mace. I  _ prayed  _ that it still worked and cursed myself for not testing it out earlier.

With a shaking hand, I pointed the can at the front zipper of the tent, and hoped that this giant animal didn't have abusable thumbs.

What was it gonna do? Scratch its way into my tent with it's razor sharp claws? Bite through the polyester with its ungodly teeth?

Probably.

I held my breath in the tent, waiting for a noise, any noise at all. My head was void of all rational thought; I could only come up with escape routes. Could I make a run for it? No, the unzipping of the tent would put me at a disadvantage. The only other realistic option I had was to wait it out: to wait for the animal to disappear, or for him to come knocking at my door.

How do you even  _ work  _ bear mace?

There were snarls that ripped through the heavy silence, and I shook so intensely that I doubted I could even protect myself. Fear was running through my veins, and my stomach was doing flips. I kept asking myself how I could survive this.

And then, in an even more horrifying turn of events, I heard a shrill laugh.

I thought I was going to piss my pants right there in the tent.

Because that was  _ not  _ the laugh of a  _ human  _ in the face of a deadly and snarling animal. That was the chilling laughter of something else.

I sat in the back of the tent, as far from the entrance as I could, waiting for something to come after that laughter, but there was nothing. The cold was starting to drain feeling from the tips of my fingers, but I was so frozen in fear I couldn't reach for the blanket.

I remained still for about twenty minutes, my finger shaking on the button on the mace can. And I knew I couldn't stay there all night. With all the courage I had, I moved towards the front of the tent again, listened once more for the sound of a threat, and when there was nothing, my fingers reached for the zipper.

_ God, if you're out there, I'm sorry for all the lies I told. I don't wanna be mauled to death tonight. _

With a shaky exhale, I ripped open the tent and sprinted, legs moving faster than I knew they were capable of. I could hear my heartbeat as if it was pressed against my eardrums. As I ran, my finger never left the can. I held it up in front of me in case something,  _ anything,  _ appeared in front of me.

I didn't know what it would be, but I wanted to be prepared.

When I broke through the trees and landed on the trail again, my lungs were burning and my legs felt as if they were going to collapse, but I pushed through, and didn't stop running until I was flung back into the driver's seat of my tiny little rusted car.

And once I was, I fell against the steering wheel and broke into sobs.

My whole body was shaking like a leaf. The still photo of Bear watched me as I sobbed; I could feel his paper eyes on me. The pressure of the photo was a lot more now that I had a better idea of what ended his life.

A jolt ran through me as I came to the realization that I needed to get the  _ fuck  _ out of there. I pulled out of the little dirt parking lot, and sped all the way back to Kim's house.

I didn't realize until the next morning, when I went back in daylight to collect my things, that the camera I set up on my tent was gone.


	2. chapter two: the car

For the third morning in a row, I dangled my legs off the edge of Kim's bed and scribbled down as much information as I could in my new and detestably emptier notebook.

_ Adlets. _

The word had been on the tip of my tongue since the morning I broke down my tent. I had written about them in my journal about six months ago, in a late-night research session at around three in the morning. The majority of theories I had scribbled down in my notebook  _ were  _ a result of that late-night, sleep-deprived internet searching.

Even now, my eyes were weighed down by the bags under them. I hadn't gotten much sleep, as every time I closed my eyes, I saw the snarled lip of the monstrous wolf and the shrill laugh that echoed in my ears. I imagined the teeth puncturing my brother's neck while that laugh echoed off the trees. Lately, I had been surviving off of coffee instead of sleep.

The Adlet were a part of Inuit mythology—bloodthirsty creatures that were the result of a union between an Inuit woman and a giant dog. Her children were a horrifying combination of a giant, wild dog, and the strong arms of a man. These hybrid creatures were said to roam around the Canadian tundra, feasting on villagers.

I thought of the Adlet when I thought of the wolf that stood across from me. There was something so  _ unnatural  _ about it, something so unnerving. Primarily, it was too large, and secondarily, there was something different about the look in its eyes when it stared me down. It left me with chills.

And when the sound of laughter played in my ears once more, I wrote the word  _ mother?  _ on the top of the page.

I became convinced there was something inhuman about the way the deaths in this town went about two months after Bear disappeared. When three other men died in the same week from  _ bear  _ attacks, and the bare human footprint was just brushed under the rug and forgotten about with no follow up, I knew there was something  _ wrong.  _ No one seemed to piece any of this together, and no one seemed to notice that people kept dying from  _ bear  _ attacks, despite there never seeming to be any bears in the area.

"What are you writing?" Kim asked from her spot on the couch, scrolling through her phone without looking up at me.

"Homework," I lied coolly, tapping my pencil on the page.

Kim roller over on her stomach and raised an eyebrow at me. "It's spring break?"

"Yeah, and I have homework. Beckett has us doing a fifteen-page essay and I have nothing," I answered.

After a moment, Kim rolled back onto her back and returned to her phone. Kim was nice in the way that she never pressed anything too hard. "I think Beckett has it out for your class. He assigned us five pages."

I snorted. "Kim, I'm in AP. You're in college prep."

"Fuck off," she mumbled.

Even though our friendship was rooted in a need to lie to our parents, we were still close. We were, essentially, each other's only friends. We both preferred to keep to ourselves, Kim because she was unbearably shy and flushed in the cheeks whenever she talked to someone new, and me because I just wasn't interested in the people around me.

We worked well together.

When Bear died, I had nightmares. During the day, I couldn't bring myself to cry. The whole time I just felt numb. But when the sun set and I tried to close my eyes to sleep, I kept seeing my brother walk into the forest and walk out as a decayed and fading corpse. I would scream and cry and sob, and Kim started to stay over. She would sleep in my bed with me and hug me tightly until my screams subsided, while my parents lied in bed, comatose.

Kim and I used to spend almost every day together. Until Jared.

And I wasn't bitter, I couldn't be. Because I knew that Kim had spent almost her entire high school career crushing on him, and when he finally paid her attention, she was ecstatic, texting me twenty times in a row to tell me that her dream had come true, and her dream guy had finally asked her out.

Still, I wished he shared sometimes.

"So have your boyfriend and his little mob been playing Dungeons and Dragons for the past three days? I think this is the longest I've seen him go without you."

She didn't move from her spot on the couch. "I mean, I guess. Jared said he'd probably come over soon."

I groaned, and rolled off the couch. "I'm gonna go home, then. I don't wanna be here to witness the  _ reunion."  _ I picked up my bag from the ground and gave Kim a bright smile. "Text me?"

"I will. I have nothing else to do, since my essay's only five pages."

I rolled my eyes. "Love you," I called to her.

"Love you too," she said back as I closed the door behind me.

I pushed around the food on my plate. It was mushy and brown and smelled like rotted vegetables. "Mom, what is this?" I asked, pushing a wilted brussel sprout around my plate.

She frowned. "Chicken pot pie with fresh vegetables."

My dad and I exchanged a look. "These are fresh?" he asked.

"Oh hush, the both of you," my mom pouted down at her plate while my dad and I laughed. Gently teasing my mom was a pastime Dad and I had for years. It was funny to watch her cheeks heat up and her face squirm as she tried to hide her smile. We've been a little bit gentler in the past year. "It's not that bad."

"They're pretty bad, dear."

"Yeah, Mom, this is like," I waved a soggy Brussel sprout around on my fork, "pretty bad. Like I don't know how it gets much worse than this."

"Well, I'd better learn to cook, because the Ateara's are coming over for dinner on Friday."

The laughter died in my throat. "What? Mom are you serious?"

"They're family, honey."

"Are we sure? Do we have any proof of that, or is that just something we've always said?"

Quil Ateara, one of the dropouts, was my "cousin." Or at least, I called him my cousin, and my family invited his family over for holidays and random dinners. I think our mom's were just good friends, and that made it so they had to sit through all of our family functions. Quil and I didn't  _ not  _ get along; there wasn't any conflict, but we definitely didn't' prefer each other's company. Dinners were always silent. He got along better with Bear.

Quil used to spend a lot of time with my mom in the wake of Bear's death. He would call her almost daily and visit her and bring her gifts from his own mother. He joined the cult recently, and when he did, it all stopped, and my mother was left wondering where he went and why he stopped the calls.

My dad patted my back. "Family's what you make it, honey, and the Ateara's are our family."

I groaned.

I fiddled with the corner of the freshly printed paper I held on my lap. It was eight in the morning and I could feel the bags under my eyes, weighing down my face. Normally, at eight in the morning on spring break, I would be lying in my bed, undisturbed for another three hours. But I had spent almost my entire bank account on an item that was now missing, and that left me a little short on cash.

This was the third job I applied to, and thus, so far, no luck.

There was a little bookstore on the border of the Quiluete Reservation and the neighboring town of Forks that was trapped between a liquor store and a convenience store that also sold liquor. It was small and crowded; the new books were mixed with worn down books with yellowed pages that people donated. It smelled like aged paper and stale coffee.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek, waiting anxiously for someone to come out and tell me that they didn't even need to interview me, that I could just have the job, and I would get my paycheck by the end of the week. Out of all the jobs I could get, this would be the best: quiet, dark, time for me to do my homework and refill my new journal with the old and new information I gathered.

The longer I stood in front of the counter, waiting for someone to show, the more my mind wandered, drifting away to that spot in the woods. I marked it down on a map of the area, scribbling down an 'x' and then circling it eight times over with a thick red marker. I don't know why, it's not like I'd ever forget it.

"Ms. Cree?" I whipped my head around at the sound of my name, turning to the older woman that had appeared behind the counter. "Are you ready?"

I nodded, giving her my best,  _ I am a kind and warm person  _ smile. "Yes. It's nice to meet you." I put my hand out in front of her, prepared to show her how impressive my handshake was.

But she waved my hand off. "Do you have any work experience?" she asked, not looking me in the eye.

"Umm," I pulled my resume out and placed it in front of her, "I've never had a job before, but I have a lot of extracurricular activities from school, and I also made honor-"

She cut my off by raising her hand, and she looked up at me with an exasperated expression. "I'm not looking for a kid with no experience. I appreciate you coming out here today, but I don't want to waste my time teaching someone how to work. Have a good day," she said, pushing my resume back at me.

I stared at her, mouth slightly agape, but she still paid no mind to me. Wordlessly, I turned and walked out of the store. When I stepped out onto the pavement, I looked back at the 'Help Wanted' sign that hung in the window.

What was I supposed to do now?

Feeling defeated, I made my way back to my car. I had to park two blocks away for this stupid interview that I didn't even get to have. I guess blowing three job interviews was just one thing I could add to things that went wrong in the past week.

When I reached my car, I paused with my hand on the door handle. I looked up at the gray sky, watching the dark clouds bunch together. "Can you throw me a bone?" I asked to the sky, hoping that there was someone or something up there that would hear my plea.

Feeling ignored by the universe, I got into my car, the feeling of defeat that I first felt last Friday never once wavering. I got in the car, and I drove to the only place I could think to go.

It was a warm day for the middle of March. Though the sun still hid behind a seemingly permanent overcast, there air was warm enough for me to abandon my jacket and settle for sweater. I liked to watch the waves crash against the shore, and the sound of it made me feel calm, more in tune with the world around me.

I pondered the possibilities of the Adlets; whether or not they were real, if they could've made their way down from central Canada

Whooping laughter pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked over at the cliffs that lined the ocean, just down the shore. I wasn't surprised to see the six Quiluete dropouts standing above the drop, pushing and shoving each other towards the edge. They had done this before; when they inducted a new member into their little cult, they all shoved each other off the cliff. At first, it made my head spin, but now, it was just another strange thing everyone turned a blind eye to.

I watched as Seth Clearwater ran towards the edge of the cliff and then halted. He didn't look like someone whose dad just died, and he definitely didn't look like a freshman in high school. Even from this distance I could see the definition in his arms and the muscles on his chest.

It was  _ unnatural. _

Seth teetered on the edge, before Jared rushed up and gave him a strong shove in the back, and Seth went tumbling into the ocean below him.

"Asshole," I said out loud, narrowing my eyes at the older boy.

And, I know its impossible, but Jared turned his head toward me, looking straight in my direction, as if he could hear me. And I thought of the Adlets.

The presence of the dropout gang made me feel as if my space had been invaded, and that I was no longer here alone. After a few moments of refusing to look back at the cliff, I stood and headed back towards my car.

I tossed my backpack into the backseat of my car, and when I slammed my door shut, I heard voices approaching. "Dude, just drop it." I recognized the voice of Embry Call, the fourth one to join the cult. He was in my grade, sat in front of me in algebra, and never once looked my way.

He followed behind Jared, who was marching towards my car with a purpose. I kept my eyes fixated on him.

"No," he shot back at Embry before turning his attention completely towards me.

The locking of our eyes made one thing very clear to me: we were going to have an altercation.

There was a fire in Jared's eyes when he looked at me, like he was waiting for this moment and now he finally had the perfect opportunity. "I want you to stay away from Kim," he commanded, voice loud, even over the wind.

"What are you, her dad?" I shot back, leaning against the door of my car.

I had no reason to dislike Jared. Like the majority of the people that lived on the reservation, I never really bothered to get to know him. From what Kim told me, he was nice to her, treated her like a goddess and practically worshipped the ground she walked on. At least, that was what she told me.

From my perspective, right here and now, he was a possessive asshole.

His jaw locked at my words. "Kim doesn't need people like you using her and treating her like shit. I'm not gonna stand by and let her be friends with someone who lies to her."

My stomach knotted at his words, because even though I did technically lie to Kim, there was no way she would've known, and even less of a possibility of Jared knowing. I narrowed my eyes at him. "What are you even talking about?"

Jared snarled at me like a fucking dog. "You know exactly what I'm talking about. I don't care what you do, but don't drag Kim into it by feeding her bullshit."

I cocked an eyebrow, gawking at the audacity of the kid in front of me. "Dude, I don't care what you're going on about, but honestly, it's not your fucking business."

There was a trembling that started in his hands as she spoke. "Kim is my business. And I don't want you around her anymore."

"Fuck off, dude. You don't own her."

Jared glared me down while Embry wedged himself between the two of us, back to me with his hand on Jared's shoulder. "Jared, just walk away dude," Embry pleaded of his older counterpart.

With an annoyed grunt, Jared complied. He turned on his heel and stomped away from me. I stared at his retreating form, wondering if his annoyance matched my own.

"You know you really shouldn't egg him on."

At the sound of Embry's voice, I flicked my eyes away from Jared and turned my attention towards Embry.

But instead of meeting my gaze, Embry's eyes remained trained on the gravel parking lot, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his cargo shorts. "Yeah, well maybe he shouldn't act like such an asshole."

With that note, I slipped into my car and slammed the door shut, leaving Embry Call on the edge of the parking lot.

On the Thursday night of spring break, I sat in my bed and stared at the wall. My phone was in my left hand, and my new journal in my right. I could only manage to switch between two thoughts.

The first thought was that I, and everyone else that lived on the rez, was in danger. There were monsters in the woods, and I had no idea how to present that information or who I should even present it to. I imagined walking up to the chief of police with my little notebook full of cryptids and conspiracies and him throwing it back in my face. And I knew it sounded crazy, and for a few moments I considered the possibility that I might be insane for thinking that a mythical race might be ravaging the coastline and responsible for the death of my brother.

It was a little far-fetched, I admit, but it was the strongest working theory I had.

There wasn't anything else I could think of to explain what I saw, because I knew for certain that that  _ thing,  _ whatever it was, was  _ not  _ a wolf.

I wondered if the six dropouts were part of some weird  _ cult  _ that worshipped the Adlets. And then I wondered if they made  _ sacrifices  _ to the Adlets. That thought made my gut drop.

And the second thought that bounced around in my head was that Jared Cameron was a possessive creep that acted more like a dad than a boyfriend, and I needed Kim to know that.

It wasn't necessarily that I wanted them to break up, partly because I knew how much it would kill Kim and I didn't really want to put my friend through that or even deal with the aftermath (there were only so many cheesy post-break up movies I could bear to stream). But at the very least, I needed him to shape the fuck up.

There wasn't much I was willing to tolerate.

Not when it came to Kim, at least. I wasn't about to stand by and let some jerk who didn't pay any attention to her put a leash on her and treat her like a misbehaving dog.

The thought of it actually made my blood boil. What a  _ douche. _

I wondered if worshipping Inuit bloodthirsty man-dogs made you into a dick.

But then I thought of Seth Clearwater, who was barely fifteen, laughing with his stupid little dimples and his happy-go-lucky attitude didn't seem to disappear post-cult induction.

Then I remembered Quil leaving my grieving mother to wait by the phone for his call.

And then I remembered Embry Call.

Embry Call had never talked to me before, but when Jared looked like he was going to rip my head off in his girlfriend's honor, he put himself between us. Embry Call didn't meet my glance and he didn't pay attention to me, and pre-cult I'm pretty sure he signed a condolence card the whole grade gave to me last year. He used to laugh loudly in the halls and push his buddies into lockers and let pretty girls braid his long hair. And then he cut it all off and dropped out of school and we all stopped hearing about him. I wondered why he pulled Jared away from me. I wondered why he didn't look at me.

I jumped when my phone started to ring, ripping me away from my thoughts. I answered it, knowing who it was already. "Hey, what's up?"

"Remy, holy shit I am  _ so sorry  _ about Jared," Kim gushed immediately, words rushed. "I don't know why he was acting like that but when Embry told me I swear to god I could've killed him. I'm really, really sorry, Remy."

Chuckling, I threw my notebook to the side and stood, stretching my limbs. "It's okay, Kim. It's not your fault your boyfriend's an asshole."

I walked around my small room while she spoke. "He's not  _ always _ an asshole. Like, I'm totally shocked he would do something like this. Honestly, Remy, I'm so sorry he talked to you like that. He never will again, I promise."

"Uh-huh, I'm sure."

"No, I'm serious, Remy. And it probably makes me seem like an idiot too, for being with him when he's talking to you like that."

I sat on the dresser against my window, leaning against the pane and watching the trees. "It doesn't make you seem like an idiot, Kim. I know he doesn't talk to  _ you  _ like that."

"Well he shouldn't talk to my  _ friends  _ like that either, I mean seriously. But hey! I think we should all spend some time together. I mean, you're my best friend, and I don't want you and my boyfriend to be like enemies."

While Kim was ranting about her boyfriend, I saw something move in the trees. It was bright, brighter than anything than anything I would  _ expect  _ to see outside of my house. I leaned forward, eyes narrowing.

And when I realized what I was, I screamed.

Well, more like yelped.

"And I swear I'll never-Remy, are you okay?" Kim asked as I watched the silver wolf retreat further back into the forest.

I gulped, mouth feeling dry. "Yeah, I'm okay. I just spilled some tea," I said, and momentarily amazed at how easy it was for me to lie to Kim. "Can I call you back later?"

"Yeah, of course. You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Love you."

"Love you," I heard her say before I threw my phone down on the bed, and rushed back towards the window.

I felt cold.


	3. chapter three: the fall

I think my mom always had this weird thing where she hoped that someday, against all odds, Quil and I would get married. She first developed this fantasy when we were born around the same time, and the idea of her daughter marrying the son of her best friend became her biggest dream. She arranged for us to have play dates almost daily, bringing us to the zoo or the park and making us pose for pictures (many of which are still hanging up on our fridge). But when we were old enough to start developing opinions of our own and start hanging out with people other than our mom's friend's kids, we stopped being best friends, if we could even be considered that in the first place. By the time we had both entered middle school, Quil and I spent no time together, school or otherwise. And I think at some point through the course of our high school careers, after realizing that we never willingly spoke two words to each other, she decided, hey, maybe it will never happen, maybe I should come to terms with this.

But tonight, there was some spark in her eyes that indicated that maybe she was starting to get her hopes up again, because Quil was staring at me.

Ever since my mom opened the door and Joy Ateara gushed about how nice the house looked, how good the food smelled, and how much older I looked, Quil had not stopped looking my way. And I couldn't figure out why, because he didn't even really do much to acknowledge my existence even before he was a member of his little  _ group.  _ But his gaze was intense and it was hard not to ignore the giggles of my mother, who must have thought this was the best thing to happen since sliced bread. "Remy," she said with a tone that I guess she must have thought was coy, "will you pass Quil the potatoes?"

With a glare, I took the bowl from my mother. "Did you buy these premade? They're actually edible?" I asked, shoving the bowl in front of Quil without looking back at him. He took the bowl with the grumbled, 'thank you,' and then set the bowl to the side, not taking any of the food.

"Hush," my mother warned, eyes sharp.

"This is really good, Mrs. Cree," Quil said, despite the fact that he had barely touched anything on his plate.

While my parents and Joy gossiped about the people living on this small reservation, I pushed the rotisserie chicken my mom bought forty-five minutes ago around on my plate and tried not to acknowledge the glances Quil kept giving me. It was a little unnerving, and brought back to my memory the gaze of the wolf in the clearing. Between the hot headed Jared and Quil's new creepy behavior, I wasn't sure if I liked whatever their little cult was doing to them.

"Did you hear that, Remy?" my dad asked, and I jumped at the sound of his voice. Him, my mom, and Joy were all staring at me expectantly. I shook my head.

Joy smiled. Joy was aptly named; everything about her was warm and inviting. I distinctly remember my favorite part of my play dates with Quil being Joy, and spending time with her and eating her food. She was a single mother, but still probably the best mother I could think of. Not that I didn't love my own mom, but Joy got her beat in terms of motherly qualities and housewife skills. "I heard you were looking for a job. I have friends who own a bakery, by the high school in Forks. Would you be interested in that?"

I beamed. "Yeah, definitely. The job search hasn't been going too well, lately. That'd be really great."

And then, Joy's tone changed. "Great! Quil worked there up until recently, but ever since he quit, they've had a hard time filling his spot. Right, Quil?"

The boy next to me groaned. "Mom, I told you, I don't have time anymore. Besides, Rem probably needs the job more than me." He leaned in closer to me and said, quieter, "You're welcome, by the way."

"Yeah, thanks," I mumbled, half sincere and half begrudgingly.

"I'll leave you their number tonight. Don't let me forget! I'll put in a good word for you. Oh, they're gonna be so happy. They've been looking for someone for ages but it's so hard to find someone good nowadays."

This jump started a conversation about the tragic state of youth culture and how absolutely devastating it was to see the teens of this generation act in such a degrading way. I was halfway tempted to get the photo of my father as an eighties punk with liberty spikes, but I kept that thought to myself.

"So," Quil said, slowly dragging out the word and eliminating the possibility of me ignoring him for the night. I stared back at him, waiting for him to elaborate somehow. "How's uh, school been?"

"You're gonna ask me about school right now?"

He furrowed his eyebrows. "Um, yeah, I guess."

I scoffed, and looked back down at my plate. "Fine, I guess."

There was a thick awkwardness between the two of us. I guess, if I was better at investigating the abnormalities of Quil and his friends, I would've been pretty eager to talk to him, and I'd be bombarding him with questions. But when it came down to it, I was kind of  _ scared  _ of Quil and his friends, and being near them reminded me of the wolf in the clearing and the one outside my bedroom window. The similarities made the hair on my arms rise. And whenever I thought about asking Quil about the possibility of him worshiping some ancient Inuit creature, my mouth went dry.

But Quil, on the other hand, seemed to be pretty determined to have a conversation with me. This was a stark difference to his earlier visits, when he would either run off with Bear or sit in his chair without saying a word. "Do you like hiking?" he asked, sounding a little bit more confident.

'Um," I started, stabbing the chicken on my plate, "no not really." I wasn't too much of a fan of hiking in the first place, it was more of a means to an end for me, but the incident had severely ruined the activity for me. "Not my thing. I like being inside more."

"Hmm, that's good. You probably shouldn't hike anyways," he noted.

This comment made me cock an eyebrow. "Why?"

Quil, for the first time this evening, refused to meet my gaze, instead of vice versa. "I mean, you never know what's in the woods. It's probably better to just avoid it, now." He presented this information so casually, as if this was something every person in the area should know, as if this area wasn't absolutely littered with hiking trails and wilderness supply stores.

My head was rushing with images of the wolf and the sound of the laugh and sight of my brother disappearing into the woods with a bottle of whiskey. "What do you mean? What's in the woods?"

Quil shrugged. "Like I said, you never know. I just don't think it's a good idea."

"Yeah, but  _ what does that mean?" _

Redness rushed to his cheeks, and he just laughed a little. "Nothing, Remy. It's really not that deep." Quil shoved a forkful of mashed potatoes in his mouth, and I stared at him, completely frazzled with red cheeks.

My mother seemed to be happy about this, as from the end of the table, she sent me a very  _ not subtle  _ wink.

I was almost late for my job interview.

It was  _ not  _ my fault.

My interview was at ten in the morning, and I woke up at six. Six in the morning, on a Saturday, during spring break, I was awake. Not only was I awake, but I was  _ functioning _ , making a breakfast complete with eggs and toast and a lot of hot sauce. There was very little I would do this for, but I was so insanely desperate to replace both the funds in my bank account and the camera I had lost in the woods.

In the shower, I thought about what could've been on the camera. I imagined a wild looking women, with russet skin and pretty hair and teeth that were sharpened to a point. She would be on the back of one of the wolves, commanding and strong. She would be laughing that laugh when she reached out and snatched the camera from the bungee cords and crushed it against a tree. Or maybe she fed it to one of her wolves.

I couldn't imagine why they left me there. If I was right about what I saw, and I'm almost positive I was, it didn't really make much sense for them to let me live.

Or maybe, I was just insane.

I got dressed in record time, despite the contemplation of my sanity, wearing itchy clothes and uncomfortable shoes that were, as my mom said, perfect for a job interview. And though I wasn't the biggest fan of dressing like a forty-year-old single mother, I cared more about impressing the older bakery workers.

However, when I turned to back out of our driveway, I noticed something on my passenger seat. My journal.

At first I didn't think anything of it, because I was so used to seeing it and having it near me everywhere I went. But when I remembered that it had been missing for over a week and that whole time it definitely was  _ not  _ sitting in my car the whole time, I stepped on the breaks. I stared down at the journal, and it felt like it was staring back at me. I had been in my car  _ dozens  _ of times since I lost my journal, and I had practically torn my car apart at one point looking for it.

And then, I realized that the only way that journal would've made its way back into my car was if someone put it there. I reached for it quicker than I thought I possibly could.

It felt familiar in my hands, like it had never left. I liked the leather and how worn down it was. Hesitantly, I opened the book, and the pages flipped to my notes about lake monsters. "Fuck," I whispered to myself, completely in disbelief that it was back in my hands. I flipped through the pages, quickly and harshly, almost afraid that I might rip the paper, until I got to the page about Adlets.

My notes about them went on for three pages, and there were so many details and stories about them that I couldn't even remember. My heart pounded.

Frantically, I reached in my glove compartment to find a pen. I was desperate to write down all the information I had gathered before I could forget it. I pulled out a big pink marker, and flipped to a fresh page to scribble down everything I could.

And then, all my frantic motions stopped, because on my last page of notes, there was an unfamiliar handwriting. In red ink and chicken scratch, someone had written,  _ 'you dropped this in the parking lot. cool theories. none of them are right.' _

"Remy! What are you doing? Go, you're gonna be late!" my mom called, and I looked up to see her standing just a few feet from me in her bathroom. She must have seen my wide eyes and dumbstruck expression, because concern was immediately written across her face. "Are you okay?"

Still shaking, I released the break and pulled away from my home, throwing the journal in the backseat.

Hours after my interview, I sat in Bear's room.

He had been dead for a year now, and his room still remained untouched. It was the cleanest room in the house, as Bear was the only one in the family who couldn't stand any type of mess. He had posters on the wall of films he thought were indie and underrated that were actually critically acclaimed and popular (he never really listened to me when I told him liking  _ Donnie Darko  _ and  _ Pulp Fiction _ didn't make him unique).Bear once stole a road sign that he proudly hung on his wall, and his dressers had strange little collectibles and coins and framed photos of his friends. Everything about it was untouched, and it felt like a set for a T.V show as opposed to the room of a long dead teenage boy.

No one in my family spent a lot of time here. Occasionally, when one of us was lost in deep thought or despair, you could see the light on underneath the locked door. We all knew to give each other space when that happened.

I didn't bother turning on the lights, though, because it felt fitting to sit in the dark. Not to be so pathetically self-righteous and irritatingly metaphorical, but I really was in the dark.

My head was running around in circles, so desperate to fit together all the pieces and to make everything work, but everything was  _ wrong. _

_ Cool theories. None of them are right. _

All those hours I had spent researching creatures and legends and convincing myself that I wasn't insane for considering these possibilities were a waste of time. All those hours I spent searching for an explanation were wasted, and I felt no closer to figuring out what killed my brother.

I mean, I still had the image of the giant neighborhood wolves and the shrill laugh that came with them, but I had no idea what they  _ were  _ and what they were doing.

And I had no idea who wrote it.

My first thought was Quil, as he was a cult member and had given my weird warning about staying out of the woods  _ and  _ he was at my house just the night before. But I knew from sophomore year English class that Quil had big, bubbly handwriting like a thirteen year old girl, and it didn't match the small and scratchy writing in my journal. I had five other ideas as to who it could be.

I looked up at Bear's dresser and studied a picture of the two of us, when we were in middle school. I hated the photo, and practically begged him to burn it every time I saw it, but now, I appreciated it. I had cut my own hair in a desperate attempt to look more  _ goth _ , because my mother wouldn't let me get it done. My bangs were choppy and my hair was burnt from the sheer amount of times I put it through the straightener. Bear had his chocolate brown hair cut in one of those god awful swishy styles that made him look like a boyband wannabe. I was pouting, and he was squishing my cheeks with his hands.

We were best friends. And, even with this little setback, I was determined to name the wolf and the laugh that I knew killed him.

There were a few theories I had as to why Jared Cameron was so insistent on hating me.

Although, realistically they were all probably pretty strong reasons he hated me. And they all had to do with Kim.

The first and most compelling reason is that I was the reason they  _ almost  _ broke up for good. A few weeks after Jared and Kim started dating, they got into this huge blowout fight, and I was almost positive they were done for good. I didn't know what the fight was about, and Kim still never told me, but I knew it was bad enough for Kim to show up at my doorstep with mascara running down her face and snot bubbles in her nose. Naturally, I went into the kitchen, got a bottle of rum, and we had a time together. We were drinking and dancing and talking an insane amount of shit about Jared, and I think I might have drunkenly told Kim to leave Jared an extremely intense voicemail, and a fair few texts. There was one point where Kim was crying so hard that she handed me the phone, and gave me creative freedom over what I would say to him. And I can't say for sure what it was I said to him via text, posing as Kim, but knowing me, I probably told him that he would look better if he was jumping off a cliff.

And when the miraculously made up and became inseparable again, I don't think he forgot his girlfriend shouting the phrase,  _ And Remy thinks you're a little pussy! _

To be fair, I never really stopped thinking he was a pussy.

The second reason was the fact that on more than one occasion, I had threatened Jared. It didn't come from a dislike of him, but more of a distrust. Because, even though Kim was overwhelmed with pure joy over the idea of Jared paying even a little bit of attention to her, I was suspicious of his intentions. Pre-cult induction, Jared had large groups of friends and, at more than one point, multiple girlfriends. Jared was the source of drama and cat fights and was on track to win some stupid award like prom king or get voted  _ cutest smile.  _ He paid Kim dust.

When I approached Jared one day, while he was waiting for Kim in the parking lot, I was thinking of the  _ many  _ girls who cried because they thought they were his only girlfriend, and how heartbroken they were because they didn't realize how scummy he was. He didn't really pay attention to me until I said, "Hey, I know you think you've got everyone wrapped around your stupid little finger, but I know the type of person you are. And if you hurt Kim, your balls will become my new door knocker."

I had left before he could respond, so I don't know how well he reacted. Kim chewed me out for that one, though.

And the third and most irrational reason for Jared's hatred of me, was that I was the only person he had to share Kim with.

His possessive and douchey nature had led me to believe that he wanted Kim to spend every second of her free time with him, and the fact that I had cut into that time probably really irked him, and it didn't help that I already had a little history of both threatening and insulting him.

And it's not that I didn't  _ like  _ Jared; I didn't really care for him either way. Before Kim, I didn't really pay too much attention to him, only knowing details of his life from Kim's gushing. But his obsessive behavior was kinda of tainting my indifferent opinion of him.

So, of course, when I pulled into Kim's driveway for our regularly scheduled hangout session, and saw Jared, flanked by both Embry Call and my dear friend Quil Ateara, I groaned. "You've got to be kidding me," I mumbled, pulling the keys out of the ignition and throwing open my car door. "Hello boys," I said, slamming the door behind me. "Nice day, isn't it?"

Jared, in typical asshole fashion, glared down at me with his arms down by his side. I wasn't surprised to see that they were all shirtless, but I was surprised to see all three of them there. "I thought I told you to stay away from Kim."

"And I thought we established that you weren't her dad," I shot back, not moving from my car. Despite my tone, my hands and legs were shaking and I was absolutely terrified, my whole body vibrating with nerves. I knew there was something going on with these three dudes, and here I was, going face to face with them. "I don't know why you think you can tell Kim what to do like you own her."

"I'm just trying to help her and make sure she's safe. And keeping her away from people like you is the best way I can do that."

I scoffed. "Keep her safe from me? I was friends with Kim when you wouldn't give her a second glance, when you had your head up your ass and slept with every girl you could sniff out."

Quil and Embry stood closely behind Jared, like they were ready to jump in at any moment. But Jared laughed a humorless laugh. "You don't know anything about me."

"I know that you're a borderline abusive, piece-of-shit, asshole."

Jared brought his lip back and, once more,  _ snarled  _ at me. "And you're an alcoholic bum with a dead drug dealing brother and I'm  _ not  _ gonna let you ruin Kim's life like you've ruined yours."

First, Quil stepped away from Jared and said, "Too fucking far, dude."

Second, Embry turned around and said, "Shit," like he was aware that things had officially gone too far.

Third, my legs moved before my mind could process my actions, and I marched up to Jared and slapped him in the face.

In quick motions I couldn't even process, Embry snaked an arm around my waist and dragged my away from Jared and back towards my car. Embry held onto my waist like he was afraid of what would happen if he let go, and I watched Jared's whole body tremble, as Quil struggled to drag him away towards the line of trees. "Jared, c'mon, let's not do this here bud," he said, pulling on his arm.

Jared's feet started moving first. "God fucking dammit," he said, pushing Quil off him and sprinting into the trees outside of Kim's house.

Quil looked at me with big eyes. "I'm really sorry, Remy." And with that, he ran off behind Jared.

I stood still, chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. It was the same heavy breaths of air in my ear that reminded me of Embry's close hold on me, and I promptly pushed myself away from him. I turned towards him, knotting my hands in the roots of my hair and looking down at my feet. "What the fuck is his problem?" I asked, turning briefly to kick the wheel of my car as hard as I could. Heat was running through my body like Jared's words lit my body on fire.

"I told you not to egg him on," Embry said. "I'm sorry for the things he said. He's not in his right mind right now."

I looked up at Embry, his eyes finally meeting mine. I ignored the way his eyes widened and his breathing briefly stopped. "Then why did you just stand there and let him act like that? Let him say that shit to me?"

But I didn't get an answer, just Embry's eyes fixated on mine. He looked like he was in a trance, and, despite the boiling of my blood, I felt some sort of comfort in the wideness and deepness of his almost-black eyes.

And then, Embry dropped to his knees in front of me.

"What the hell is going on here?"

I whipped my head away from Embry and looked at the front door of the home to see Kim standing in the door, looking perplexed. "Remy?"

Kim's voice erased the weird sense of comfort I got from the look in Embry's eyes, and the rage rushed back through me. "Tell Jared he won," I snapped, and looked back at Embry once more before I got back in my car.


	4. chapter four: the journal

I watched myself pull my front lip back and furl it above my row of teeth with narrowed eyes and a scrunched nose. My canines were sharp, but my eyes were too big and I had too many freckles on my cheeks and nose to look nearly as intimidating as the boy who used this expression on me, and when I pulled my lip back I looked like I had busted it. The bathroom mirror had the kindest light, and even under it I looked like hell.

Sighing, I dropped my features and rubbed my face, pushing my fists deep into my eyes. I was tired. The lack of sleep wore itself under my eyes. The sleepless nights had worsened since break ended, and most nights I found myself staring down the bright screen of my laptop, scrolling endlessly through cryptid websites. And even if I wanted to sleep, the ringing of my phone would've interrupted me every twenty minutes.

And I felt as miserable as I looked. I guess I had some sort of weird self-defeating traits that resulted in my mind replaying the words Jared said to me on a loop, over and over. Alcoholic bum sounded as familiar as my own voice now, and the bottles of wine my parents so carelessly left out on counters seemed to taunt me. I didn't dare to touch them, wondering if the weird aching in my chest that persisted for days was because I had stopped drinking or because I missed my friend.

School had been hell since it started back up again. Through the long and boring lectures about history and trigonometry, I couldn't find myself paying attention. And when I handed in my fourteen-and-a-half paper that rambled on about the same undeveloped point for at least ten pages, I was promptly told to rewrite. At I sat at my kitchen table at night with several textbooks open and got no work done. All the problem-solving parts of my brain were already occupied, and analyzing Foucault in itself seemed like a prison.

To keep myself from falling into the abyss of self-pitying, I listened to other people. Listening to the voices of my classmates as they gossiped and whispered about the speculation of pregnancies, cheating, and betrayal. The majority of it wasn't true, but it was at least interesting to hear people pretend that the tiny little reservation high school had its own MTV reality show and they were the stars. I think the fact that it was wrong honestly kind of made it funnier.

In literature, I listened to Shia and Mel Blackburn talk about how they heard from their brother that Jacob Black (who I used to be just a little bit in love with before he dropped out and cut off all his hair; I guess in retrospect I just liked his hair) was in love with some Forks girl named Bella but she dumped Black for some guy who dumped her like a year ago. Which was interesting when combined with the little tidbit I heard in physics from Lily Fuller, who had heard from her friend's cousin's girlfriend Jessica, that Bella left town for a few days to get an abortion. Lily had a really nice time debating over who she thought the dad was.

But I didn't really trust anyone named Jessica.

There wasn't anything really interesting until I hit my lunch period.

I normally had lunch with Kim, but I was actually doing a spectacular job ignoring her (much to my surprise, because the combination of my loneliness and boredom was generally an unstoppable force). So I had planned to sneak an apple and shitty turkey sandwich into the library and hide myself in the autobiography section, but when walking by a full table of chatting friends, I froze in my tracks.

"No, I swear to god, it was a giant wolf. A huge, black wolf."

I halted at the words, hesitating before looking around and awkwardly settling into a chair at an empty table nearby. I was close enough to hear, if I didn't bite into my apple. I pulled out my journal and pretended to read while I listened to them mindlessly chatter. "You don't have to lie to impress us; we're already friends."

"I am not lying. I was fishing with my dad, you can ask him. We were at Sol Duc River, and then we just heard this noise, like it was growling at something. And then we turned around and it was this fucking huge wolf sprinting, like it was so fast we could barely see it."

"Maybe it was just a bear," someone offered back nonchalantly.

"Bears can't run that fast, bears are fat."

"Dude, bears can run like, thirty miles an hour."

"What?"

I tuned out after I realized the conversation had taken an uninteresting turn, instead deciding to focus my attention on my journal.

Every time I saw someone turn in their homework or take notes in class, I checked to see if their handwriting matched up. I looked for the similarities in the way they scribbled letters, but I quickly realized that almost all boys have almost exactly the same shitty handwriting (expect, of course, Quil, who still wrote like a tween girl). And it's not like any of the Quileute cult boys were around for me to check their algebra homework. Besides Quil, I had effectively ruled out Jared, as I figured he would just rip my journal up instead of giving it back.

Flipping back and forth between my notes on Adlets and the little note my mystery informant left me, I felt, once again, defeated, backed into a corner. I was the only one in town who had any semblance of an idea or clue that something was wrong, and I was no closer to knowing the truth than I was the day Bear went missing.

I left the cafeteria before the lunch period ended, and stuffed my journal in my locker for the rest of the day. When the final bell rang, signaling the end of the day, I tucked it into my bag.

It was drizzling when I stepped outside, like it generally was. I used to think I would move somewhere warm when I left high school; go to school in Texas and fall in love with a cowboy or something. But that was when my parents had two children, and I knew now that I couldn't leave them. So I was resigned to spend the rest of my life in the rain, attending the University of Washington and studying something my parents didn't approve of, like philosophy or film making.

There was a tall and familiar figure leaning against my car, I noticed from a distance, and wished I had spent more time rehearsing my intimidating face in the mirror. Embry stared directly at me as I approached, and he looked just as tired and miserable as I did, huge bags under his eyes and slouched shoulders. And even though he wasn't on my list of favorite people, I had to admit that the worn-down tough guy look was kinda hot on him. I didn't shake with nerves like I did when I was confronted by Jared, but instead felt calm. Weirdly enough, this was the second time Embry had this affect on me. "What are you doing?" I shouted, stopping about five feet away from Embry. I hoped the further away from him I stood, the larger I looked.

He pushed off my car and stepped towards me. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. "I wanted to apologize to you."

I cocked an eyebrow. "Okay."

Embry blew air out of his cheeks and looked to the sky, like there was a script he was trying to remember. "I'm sorry for how things went down the other day. Jared is new to this whole, relationship thing, and doesn't know how to control his more, primal emotions. I shouldn't have just stood there and let him say those things to you. I knew it was messed up, and I shouldn't have let him try to confront you in the first place."

There was a space between us and I could feel it. "Okay, so why did you?"

"What?"

"I mean, if you know you shouldn't have let him do and say those things, then why did you?"

There was this expression on his face I couldn't read, it was mixed with so many different types of emotions. His features pulled together like he was wincing in pain, but his eyes were glossy, like he was in some happy trance. He shrugged. "Because I'm a dumbass," he said simply.

"Well, I appreciate the honesty," I said, "and thanks for the apology."

I hiked my backpack up on my shoulder and tried to move past him, stepping towards the driver's seat. But Embry backed up and put his hand in front of me, making me stop in place once more. "Wait, I have something else I wanted to ask you." I stared up at him expectantly, arms crossed. "I was uh, I was just wondering if you wanted to like, hang out sometime."

"You wanna hang out with me?"

And then, since the first time since he dropped out of classes, a large smile spread across Embry's face. It was bright and his teeth were straight and it made my stomach knot up. "Yeah, I thought it would be fun."

I paused for a moment. "No thanks," I said, and once again made a move for the driver's seat.

His smile dropped as quickly as it appeared, and he followed me as I swung open the door. "No? Why not?"

I leaned against the car door and frowned at him. "The fact that you're friends with someone who has been so rude to me and a shitty boyfriend to my friend makes me kinda question your character. And I mean, we've never even talked before."

"Now's as good as ever to start," he said, voice almost pleading. I tried to ignore how sad he looked, like I said something almost as mean as what his buddy said to me.

I didn't really know what to say to that, so I left him with a gentle, "Sorry, I'm just gonna have to pass," which came off way harsher than intended. I slid into the car, and for the third time, I left Embry on the pavement as I drove away.

It seemed that I couldn't escape the Quileute cult, because when I pulled into the driveway of my own home, my safe and secure home, the Ateara household truck was in the spot where my little tiny car would be. For a moment, I kept my hands tightly on the wheel and my foot on the break and thought, hey, I could just leave. But I decided that there was no place far enough I could drive (without technically running away from home) that would let me forever avoid this confrontation. So I put the car in park, asked a deity or two to lend me some patience, and entered my home.

Laughter echoed throughout the house when I opened the door. I chewed on my lip as I ventured further down the hall, and saw Quil and my father sitting on the couch, laughing like they were the best of friends. Quil noticed me first, like he heard me come in, and then my father turned his head towards me. "Oh! Remy! You're home."

I dropped my bag by the couch and stood near the kitchen. "Don't sound too excited." I grabbed an apple and sat at the counter.

"Hey, Remy!" Quil said, a little too excited, like he hadn't just witnessed his friend insult me and my family before running away into the woods.

"Hey, Quil," I replied, noticeably less joyous and with a mouth full of apple. "What are you doing here?"

Before he could respond, my dad did. "Do you have to be so grumpy all the time, Remy?"

"Yes."

My dad rolled his eyes and stood. "Well, it was nice catching up with you, buddy. Hope you stop by more often. Janet really misses you. Remy," he turned towards me with a pointed finger, "be nice. No biting," he said as he marched out of the room. This little line made Quil chuckle.

When my dad was out of the room, I turned back towards Quil. "Seriously, though, why are you here? Between you and Embry and Jared, I feel like I'm getting ambushed by your little friend group."

Quil walked towards me and leaned against the opposite side of the counter. "That was a nice one, by the way." He made a whipping noise with his mouth as he smacked the air, and then gave me a proud grin. "Didn't hurt him that much, but definitely knocked down his ego. He deserved it."

"Thanks, I guess," I mumbled, "but, again, what are you doing here? Showing up at my house twice within a week is weird, considering you haven't been here at all recently."

He shrugged. "Just to visit my second family, make sure you're okay, and everything."

"Yeah, I'm okay. No thanks to you, though," I scoffed, and took another bit out of my apple.

Quil looked uncomfortable for a moment, eyebrows furrowed and mouth turned downward. "I didn't like what he said either. Briah was my friend. And I've always thought of you as like, a sister. And if it makes you feel any better, I definitely defended your honor."

I smiled a little. "What did you do, kick his ass or something?"

Quil leaned back and pounded his fists against his chest. "You fucking know it!" I laughed, a little bit louder than I thought I would. I could see why Bear would be friends with Quil; he was a well-meaning goofball like my brother was, and sometimes they had a little bit too much of an ego, but they were, at the end of the day, lovable idiots. And I could see why my mom would find comfort in Quil.

I guessed he wasn't that bad. "Well, thanks for beating Jared up. It means a lot to me."

For a moment, Quil smiled at me and I saw my brother in him. And then he leaned back down to face me and said, in a far more serious tone, "You're family, Remy, we're all here for you now."

I gave him a smile with a twisted mouth, trying to ignore the odd sentiment.

Quil stayed, insisting that he wanted to wait until my mom got home. "I bet she misses me. I am her favorite child, after all." It was strange to be around Quil after he drifted so far away from our family. He came back like he never left, lingering in my kitchen and eating food out of our fridge. He lied out on the couch and watched out television while I sat at the kitchen counter and pretended to do homework so I didn't have to pay too much attention to him. Still, he made commentary and occasionally yelled over dumb jokes to me. My mom was ecstatic to see him, and gushed over how nice it was for him to visit. And even though I was relieved when he left, I was kinda glad he came over. It felt like having a brother around again.

After eating a gross and burnt dinner with my family, I bid them a goodnight, telling them I had to go to bed early for classes. They gave me kisses on the forehead, and didn't think anything of it when I closed my bedroom door behind me.

In the solidarity of my own bedroom, I thumbed through my journal, and contemplated the stupidity of what I was about to do. It was apparent that I didn't really learn from my mistake of sneaking out into the middle of the night and almost getting killed by weird mythical wolves, because I kept my journal tucked tightly under my arm as I jumped out of my window.

Sneaking out of a two story window wasn't hard once you got used to it. You just had to have decent upper body strength and know where to place the tips of your toes. And once my toes hit the grass, I was free.

The worst and most dangerous part of my plan was that I had to walk. My parents would've noticed if I had taken the car. But it was only a fifteen minute walk to the school, and it was relatively well lit. I wasn't too concerned.

I shoved my hands into my sweatshirt pocket, in which I had stashed my little pocket knife. Though on the off chance I did run into anything dangerous, I doubted my four inch blade would do much to protect me. Maybe I could poke out a wolf eye, or something. That'd be a prize.

The air out here was clean, and I inhaled deeply, hoping it would clear my head. I had felt like over the past week, my brain had started melting, and became fundamentally useless. Between the surreal experience of almost dying to hitting my best friend's boyfriend in the face to being ambushed by a boy that I had never talked to before, it was too much for my three brain cells to handle. And even though I felt like I got the short end of the stick, I couldn't help but feel for Kim, and I wondered if she missed me as much as I missed her. She had been calling me a lot, and sent me several texts I was too nervous to read. I didn't know what she would've said to me, and I was too stressed out to find out.

I arrived at the school parking lot and walked to where I park my car every day. I wondered for a moment, if there was any chance it would work. The odds were, admittedly, extremely slim, and I thought for a moment that I was stupid for even trying it. I flipped to the freshest page in my journal.

If all my theories are wrong, I think you should give me a hint and tell me what's right. _You owe me, since you broke into my car._

With a sigh, I placed the journal down where my car would be parked at seven-forty-five the next morning, and turned to walk back home.

The next morning, I rushed to get ready, brushing my teeth and brushing my hair in record time before sprinting out to my car, desperate to see if my theory had worked. And when I unlocked my car and rushed to my passenger seat, my stomach dropped at the sight of my journal, once again, sitting in my passenger seat,

Tentatively, I reached out and flipped to the newest page, breathing heavy.

_It's not breaking in if you don't lock it. You should be more careful, and stay inside at night._


	5. chapter five: the excuse

For the first time in over a week, I talked to Kim.

It was the middle of Saturday after my first shift at the bakery (which, by the way, was hell. I still have no idea what a dacquoise was, and I got yelled at by white ladies at least three times). And I was thinking about how stupid it was that it was Saturday and my biggest plans of the weekend were working at a bakery binge watching true crime documentaries. And it wasn't that I felt like a total loser, but that I knew I was a total loser. I had fallen in social standing so quickly. Without Kim, my social life was dead.

But my phone rang, and I stared down at the name on the screen for three rings before I decided that maybe if I wasn't being so stubborn about all of this then I wouldn't be by myself on my only days off. I chewed on my lip and picked it up. "Hello?"

"Remy. Why the hell have you been ignoring me?" Kim yelled into the phone. "I've been calling you at least three times a day and like, nothing! Like what the hell?"

I sighed. "You know why I've been ignoring you, Kim."

Kim always had this certain tone in her voice when she was mad; it was like she was so overwhelmed with all the rage she couldn't contain that she was just on the verge of tears. "That's not fair! If you had just come up to me and talked to me about Jared, you know I would've defended you! You know I would've talked to him about it."

But I felt rage too. I got mad too. "He's not a dog, Kim. Jared's a big boy and you can't just reprimand him until he learns to stop verbally abusing me. Like, honestly, Kim, how many times can he act like a complete dick before you stop handing him chances?"

And when Kim spoke again her voice cracked like the tears finally won over. "You just don't get it, Remy."

"Then explain it to me, Kim."

She choked. "You'll understand eventually, Remy. I just can't tell you."

The sound of her voice on my phone made me feel sick. It was the combination of her refusal to acknowledge how shitty her boyfriend was acting and the fact that she refused to even explain it to me. It made the anger in my chest explode. "Wow, you've done a really great job convincing me, Kim. You're a really great friend."

Kim's anger was raw and emotional and filled with tears. Mine was sharp and jagged and left little cuts everywhere. "Come on, Remy, can you please just cut me some slack? I didn't do anything wrong. I promise Jared will apologize. C'mon, Remy."

I clenched my jaw. "Whatever," I said, and hung up the phone before anything else could go more wrong.

Everything was so delicate, and I opened my mouth one more time I felt like I would've burned it down. I didn't want to hate Kim, and I didn't want to fight with Jared. But that's the position I'd been pushed into, and I wasn't gonna go down without kicking and scratching.

My parents used to fight a lot. Late at night, when they thought their children were asleep. They would scream until their voices ran hoarse, like they had completely emptied themselves of everything they. Their screams echoed, and the boom of my father's voice made my stomach sink. They were so caught up in the details of their credit card bills they didn't notice the floor creak under my weight as I ran into my big brother's room. I cried so I wouldn't have to hear them, and Bear hugged me like he thought it would make the pain stop.

They fought like that every week, when the night was so still that their argument carried out through the trees.

Eventually, I stopped sneaking out of my room and into Bear's, and I stopped letting tears shed at the harshness of their words and convinced myself that it was okay for my parents to hate each other. I would lie on my back and look up at the ceiling, thinking about the stars that hung above it, and counted on morning to come.

"Do you know why they fight so much?" I once asked Bear, sitting on the floor in his bedroom, watching him fiddle with the guitar he didn't yet know how to play.

Bear just gave me a shrug. "They just don't know what they're doing."

And then, one day, they just stopped.

My mother dropped to her knees when she was presented with her son's bones. Her wails were inhuman, a pain that was so deep it felt beyond comprehension. And my father feel next to her, taking her in her arms and wailing with her. I stood beyond them, unfeeling and still, and watched as they clung onto each other, sobs and tears and pain molding together and becoming so powerful I could just stare. They never fought again after that.

I watched my mom scrub the kitchen down with lemon-scented disinfectant wipes so harshly the skin on her fingers started drying out and cracking. I fiddled with the journal, gently thumbing through the pages without looking at them. The room smelled so clean I felt sick, but she kept going, moving from the fridge to the oven to the counter.

I wondered what snapped in her that day.

The pages felt smooth under my thumb. For so long I was convinced there was an answer in there, somewhere, that would give me any sort of closure. Because it was, without a fact, undisputable that Bear was dead. I knew he was, and accepted it. But he didn't do it to himself.

He didn't even leave a note. He wouldn't do that to us.

"Do you have any plans for the night?" my mom asked, and I jumped as her words yanked me back into the lemon-scented kitchen. She didn't look up at me as she spoke.

"No," I replied, tossing my journal to the side.

I could hear the frown in her voice when she spoke again. "Why don't you call Kim honey? You've been staying home a lot lately."

"What, are you tired of me already?"

She stopped abruptly and looked across the room at me. "Remy, you know that's not what I mean. It's Saturday night, you should go out and have some fun with your friends. God knows your father and I were out almost every night."

My mom did this thing where she compared how cool and popular she was in high school to how few friends I have under my belt. She used to compare me to Bear, and even then it pissed me off. I had a crystal-clear picture of what my parents were like in high school. "So you want me to microdose Adderall like you and dad?" She shot me a look. "Just not in the mood. So I guess you're stuck with me tonight, sorry."

"Actually, dad and I are going out tonight. So you're stuck at home alone tonight."

"Ah, perfect. That's way better."

My mom dropped her disinfectant wipe and walked over to me, frowning. "So, you think it's cute to act like a brat now?" I rolled my eyes at her. "I swear to god, Remy."

"Sorry my uncontrollable teen angst is too much for you to handle. Good thing you're leaving tonight so you won't have to deal with my unbearable presence." And maybe I was acting like a brat, but I was tired, and honestly, there was something off. Besides the whole Kim thing. There was something in my gut like something awful had just happened, and it lingered in my bones.

"Y'know what? Just go to your room. You're annoying me."

I pushed off the couch and grabbed my journal. "Sure," I said, tone clipped, and started rushing up the stairs. "Have fun tonight."

I stomped up the stairs over the sound of her mumbled complaints about me, and was extra careful that my bedroom door didn't make a sound when I shut it. I guess the mother-daughter conflict comes with the territory. I jumped on my bed, and made sure to stay there until I heard my parents leave.

The sunlight that lit my room was dipping, and the light fading. I watched the rays peer through the trees and slowly lower and lower, my room getting darker. When I heard the door slam and the engine of my parents' car start without a word to me, I knew I could add my mother's name on the people who currently weren't talking to me. The list wasn't that long, but the list of people who talked to me in the first place wasn't really that long in the first place. It didn't leave me with very many options.

Eventually, after being sure that I was alone in the house, I rolled off my bed and stomped down the stairs once more, ready to lie on the couch and watch television all night.

At eight-twenty, I popped open a bottle of wine and poured it into a mug.

At eight-fifty, I ordered a pizza and then ten minutes later, I called back and cancelled it, because I found a tub of unopened ice cream in the freezer, and figured that would suffice for dinner. I never opened the ice cream.

At nine-thirty at night, I swung open the front door with sweatpants rolled low on my hips and thumb stuck in a halfway peeled orange. "What, you couldn't be bothered to put a shirt on?"

Embry Call blanched, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He looked like shit. I mean, I still thought he was pretty cute, but he really looked like shit. Eyes heavy, bags bigger than mine and skin sunken. "Um, sorry, I was just, um working out." I nodded, noting the obvious lie, but not wanting to push it. "Um, can I come in?"

"Why?"

Despite his bold request, he didn't really seem to have an explanation for this. "Oh, it's just that," he paused, searching for his excuse, "Quil said he left something here, and he asked me to come get it."

"Quil didn't leave anything here," I replied confidently. My house wasn't that big; I would've noticed something out of place.

Embry exhaled sharply and bounced on his leg. "Can you please just let me in?"

"Why?"

"I just have to check something, please?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn't figure out Embry Call. Our first couple interactions, he wouldn't even look me in the eyes. And ever since he did, he hadn't stopped showing up to wherever I was and demanding my presence. And he acted weird. There wasn't a single reason I could think of that would make him want to hang out with me, and definitely not one that would make him wanna look through my house. So I decided to indulge him. "Sure," I said, opening the door and stepping back.

Embry widened his eyes, and then he rushed past me and into the house. I closed the door and leaned against it, watching him shuffle from room to room. He had such a fixed look on his face, eyes focused on nothing in particular and nose up. He went from the living room to the kitchen, and then looked back over at me. "You like lemons or something?"

"Are you sniffing my house?"

He looked back over at me for a moment. "Has anyone else come over here today? Like someone you don't know?"

"You mean besides you? No."

Embry shot me a look. "You know me."

"No, I really don't."

And I didn't. I knew he was my age and lived somewhat close to me and that he didn't have a dad but everyone on the reservation knew that. And Embry didn't know anything about me other than the fact that my brother's dead and I slapped his friend in the face. We didn't know enough about each other for him to be standing in my house and leaning against my kitchen counter like we were good buddies and like I'm being difficult.

He smiled at me again. "Well, now we can get to know each other."

I crossed my arms over my chest and stepped towards him. "Okay, well why don't we start with what you're doing in my house?"

He furrowed his eyebrows and looked around for a moment. "I dunno. I can't think of a good excuse. Do I have to tell you now?" he asked, and I gaped. I wasn't expecting that kind of brutal honesty from him. He shifted his weight, standing in my living room.

I kept staring at him, mouth slightly agape. Here was someone I didn't know, barging into my home, not even bothering to tell me why, and I wasn't mad. I wasn't even annoyed. If anything, I felt kinda, I dunno, relieved. Like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders. Embry's face made me forget about Kim and my mom and my dead brother. So I just looked at him and shrugged. "No, I guess not."

Embry smiled at me, eyes warm. "Thanks."

And for a moment, it was just the two of us standing in the kitchen. Ten feet apart, eyes trained on each other and a certain calming stillness between us. Embry and his presence was warm; his skin and his eyes and the little smile that tugged on his lips. I studied him for a moment, his warm hitting me and my brain. I wondered how many more times he would show up at my door or lean against my car and wait for me, cause it's been a fair few times already, with almost nothing prompting it. I wondered if he made me his target the same way the wolf did.

The wolf.

I had almost forgotten about the wolf and Embry's strange and undeniable connection to it. And all the calmness I felt dropped to my stomach. I frowned, crossing my arms over my chest. "Well, if that's everything," and I nodded my head to the door.

And the little smile that tugged on his lips fell. "Right," he said, but didn't move. He gently kicked his toe against the floor without looking up at me. I waited, staring. "Um, I really want to spend time with you sometime, Remy. I hope you, um, I hope you change your mind."

He said it with such sincerity and with such a sweet pleading to his voice that it made my heart tug and I said, "Yeah, maybe."

I liked the smile on his lips.


	6. chapter six: the threat

Early in the morning, the sun comes through my window at an angle that hits me right in the eyes and sometimes I'm stuck awake before I needed to be. And it sucks because I can't fall asleep until like three in the morning so when I wake up my head's banging and my eyes are burning and by four in the afternoon I already need a nap. But this morning I didn't really mind. From the time I fell asleep to the to when the sun hit my eyes, my mind kept replaying images of my brother and his bones.

I rolled off the bed and planted my feet on the floor. Most people didn't like the feeling of cold hardwood on their skin first thing in the morning, but it woke me up, kept my eyes open. I didn't ever feel like closing my eyes again, honestly. The sun felt inviting; I leaned against the window and pressed my forehead against the glass. Early mornings, my head felt clear, clearer than it did at any other point in the day. I guess that's why I didn't move my bed; I liked the time to think, even if it was about nothing in particular.

Sunday mornings were my favorite time of the week. There was nothing to do and there was this sense of peace that made me feel warm. But when I leaned against the window and thought about nothing, there was something tugging in my gut, like I was longing for something but I had never longed for anything before. There was nothing worth longing over, and the only thing in life I really ever wanted was the truth about Bear. My eyes danced over the roots of the trees. Sometimes, when I've had some wine and it's dark. I stare at the trees behind my house and they're far away from the house. I was never really sure if what I was seeing was right, but sometimes I thought I saw Bear.

The branches and the leaves shake and I think about what could be making them move. I don't think about the wolves as much anymore, because every time I did I was reminded that every theory I had was wrong. It made my head spin around and my face get red and I almost started to feel sick. I couldn't think about it anymore; I kept my journal under my bed and only took it out to look at the handwriting and wondered who cared enough to tell me I was wrong. I chewed on my lip. Whatever was going on, I felt lost in it.

I could taste blood on the inside of my cheeks but I couldn't stop biting. It was a bad habit I've had since I was a kid. It used to get really bad and my mouth would fill up with blood and I'd spit it out all over the ground. Bear used to think it was cool. The last time I chewed my mouth so much there was more blood than spit was the day I hit Jared. It was like, hours after, when I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling and I was crying. It was weird because I don't cry. I didn't cry when the pulled Bear's body out of a pile of dirt and I didn't even think I was crying because of Jared or Kim. But I think it was that longing feeling that made my chest feel compressed. I stopped biting on my cheek.

"What would you do without me?" my mother asked, her voice yanking me from the trees. I turned to see her standing at my doorway with a pile of laundry in her arms. "Hmm?"

I shrugged. "I'd probably be a prostitute. Why?"

She put her hands on her hips. My mom was a weird mom on this reservation. Most people here have lived here their whole lives and never left. We have this feeling that this is where we belong. A lot of tribes have been displaced; our colonizers take tribes and move them around the country and put them in lands they didn't know and couldn't fertilize. Not much of us leave because this is our land and it always has been. But my mom left. She graduated high school and broke up with my dad and left. My dad followed. I don't know what happened and I don't know where they went but I knew my mom always had this weird need to rebel against anything and everything and I guess that included her people. While they were gone, they had Bear. By the time they came back, my mom was pregnant with me. And she's done everything she can to separate us from who we are. She didn't raise us like the rest of the kids on the res were raised. To everyone here, she was foreign, strange. She moved and talked in ways other people didn't understand.

"I called Kim's mother and talked to her. She told me you and Kim have been fighting," she smirked, like she was a smart little detective who figured out an impossible case, "of course you didn't tell me. Anyways, I invited them over tonight, so that you two have the chance to work things out. Isn't that great?"

My stomach dropped quicker than my stomach. "You did what?"

"Don't be so dramatic. It'll be good for the both of you to hash things out."

"Hey Mom, have you ever considered that maybe you shouldn't interfere with my life like this? That maybe you should've, I dunno, stayed out of it?" I balled my hands into fists at my side, worried that if I moved them I might throw them into the wall.

Her eyes rolled. "Listen, honey, you're so stubborn. If I didn't push you in the right direction, who knows? You probably wouldn't have ever talked to her again."

My mom is a bulldozer. She is a steamroller. She is iron and I can't stand her. "Yeah, but if I did never talk to Kim again, it would've been my choice."

And then she laughed. Chuckled like I was being stupid and I didn't understand, like it was her relationship and I couldn't understand what was happening between them. "You're seventeen, Remy, you don't get to make choices."

She left my room with the laundry under her arm.

* * *

I held my phone in my hand and waited for it to buzz. I only had a couple more hours before the buzz wouldn't matter and I kept looking around and bouncing my knee. My bedroom door was locked and the sun was high in the sky. I didn't know where my mom was or my dad and I hadn't talked to her since she barged into my room and she hadn't tried to. Everything I was doing felt like a bad idea. And I guess I was so desperate to avoid talking to Kim that I thought that bad ideas were better options.

The phone buzzed, and I looked down at the message. I reached for a pen on my dresser and scribbled down the digits on the palm of my hand. My heart was beating quickly, and I stared down at the phone number on my palm. I could just leave. I could just crawl out of my window like I had done a hundred other times. But I couldn't get the car keys from downstairs and I wouldn't have an excuse.

Hands shaking, I dialed the number. "Hey, Embry? It's Remy. Do you wanna like, go for a drive and get some food or something?"

When I was thirteen, Bear brought my outside and threw a pair of gloves at me. He said, "Remy, you've always been a tough kid. But you need to get tougher. Put those on, and hit me."

Bear was tall and skinny but he was strong and the muscles in his arms were clearly defined. And I admired him, because he was tough, and people liked him, but they didn't fuck with him. I wanted to be like that too, so he taught me to fight. We would go in the backyard every day after school or on the weekends and then he would make me put on those boxing gloves. I would hit the pads he held in his own hands and lift the dumbbells and we kept going like that until my arms were strong like him.

And after he died I never stopped. Ever since then, I had never been weak. And I had gotten into a fair few fights with a couple of girls at parties Kim dragged me too after I had had too many shots and I never lost. I've always been strong.

But when I sat next to Embry in his car I had never felt so diminutive in my entire life. Normally, when I'm next to someone I'm fairly confident. I think that if anything were to happen I'd be there and I could stop it. But when I sat in the passenger seat looking at the arm muscles that were the size of my head I thought that if Embry was some psyho killer I wouldn't stand a chance.

"So why'd you call me?" Embry asked, flicking his eyes over to me. He was smiling. It was a little smile, like he was ready to drop it any second. "I know you gave me like a loose maybe, but I thought I'd have to ask like, three more times before you actually said yes." I didn't say anything, but scoffed. "I mean, I never thought you'd call me."

I shrugged. I thought about putting my feet up on the dashboard of his truck but I figured it would be rude. And I wanted to ask why every single boy on this reservation had a truck. "You gonna question it?" I asked, and I didn't like how almost everything I said made Embry smile a little bit more. "I thought spending time with you would be preferable to any other activity for the night."

When I had told my mother about my plans with Embry, with a little tag of Oh, Mom, I'm sorry I forgot to tell you, she was a blend of annoyed and overjoyed. She liked that I was talking to someone, I guess.

"You mean like, talking to Kim?" I shot him a look, eyes raised. He chuckled. "Don't worry, I don't blame you. You shouldn't have to be forced into that situation."

And suddenly I was mad once more. "Your best buddy Jared tell you?"

"No," Embry says slowly, looking at me when he said, "I haven't talked to Jared since you hit him. We've been, uh, clashing about some things. But, word travels fast. Kim tells Jared; Jared tells Jake; Jake tells me. Basically, I know everything."

The anger in me dissipated as quickly as it appeared, and I looked at him with softer eyes. Embry was gentle; his voice, his demeanor, everything about him. Even after he was maybe inducted into a cult. Being around him was strange. There was always this rage just beneath the surface with me, ready to be tapped. But when I was around Embry, it faded. It wasn't completely gone, but cooled down.

I looked out the window, and the green of the trees blurring together. "You seem pretty confident in that fact," I mumbled, and looked back over at the driver's seat. "What have you guys been fighting about?" I asked, knowing that it wouldn't possibly be me, but it made me feel a little bit weird. Fluttery.

"We're not fighting," Embry corrected quickly, "we're just, clashing. He's being kinda, I dunno, disrespectful to me, and he thinks I'm doing the same. So we're just...avoiding each other right now." I nodded, wanting more details but nervous to ask. I guess I didn't want an answer. "Do you wanna tell me more about yourself?"

"I thought you knew basically everything," I said, throwing him a little smirk. "That's a really loaded question anyways. Like, what else would you want me to say?"

"I don't know? Maybe like, fun facts about yourself. Like, tell me your favorite color."

"No," I replied, "that's lame and cliche. Hit me with a better one."

Embry tapped his fingers against the wheel and I watched the muscles move in his arms and his face. And when he looked at me there was such a familiarity in his eyes that I almost forgot that he used to never acknowledge my existence. He said, "Okay, fine. If you could be any animal, any animal at all, which would you be?"

I bit down on my lip. "You're really bad at this. Hitting me with cliche after cliche. How about this, what's your zodiac sign?"

"My what?" he asked. "You mean like, my star sign or whatever?" I nodded. "I have no idea."

I rolled my eyes. "When's your birthday?"

"May sixteenth," he replied, "what's that?"

I scrunched up my nose. "Oh my god, you're a Taurus. Ugh, god."

There was this sort of panicked look on Embry's face that made me laugh. And I liked how worried he was and little he knew. "What is that? Is that bad?"

"It's not bad," I said with a laugh, "I'm just an Aries, so we're not that compatible."

And Embry looked at me for so long I was worried that he might crash the car. And he said, "That's impossible, Remy."

* * *

Embry Call was an extraordinary dude. Not in the fact that he was nice to me or that he was so determined to be my friend or anything else like that. But because he put back three double cheeseburgers and ate like half of my fries. I sat on the top of the picnic table and watched as he finished off his last one. "Do you have two stomachs?" I asked, face mixed up with disgusted and disbelief. I was almost impressed.

"I work out a lot," he said, mouth still full of beef and bun. "I gotta fill up on a bunch of calories cause I'm like, always working out and stuff." He looked up at me and my half eaten meal. "You gonna finish that?"

I leaned back on my hands. "No," I replied, and looked back towards the setting sun. "You can go for it if you want."

He swallowed. "Didn't you say you were hungry?"

"I was hungry. Then I ate, and now I'm not."

And while Embry started talking about how I should eat and that the burgers here were great, I watched as a familiar, beaten down powder blue car pulled into the parking lot. Dirt was flying up under the wheels as it halted to a stop. "Oh shit," I mumbled, cutting off Embry in the middle of his sentence.

"Oh shit," he echoed me when he realized that Kim was jumping out of the driver's seat and rushing towards me, with Jared tailing right behind her.

I had never really seen Kim this mad before. I mean, mad at me. I had seen her mad at Jared plenty of times, and even then she was usually crying. But the rage was clear on her face and her mouth was tight and eyes focused. "So you can blow me off for two weeks and then bail on me at the last minute to hang out with Embry, huh?" her voice was raw like mine got.

And I stayed sitting on the top of the table with my jaw locked and I didn't move an inch. I stared Kim down with hard eyes and watched her chest rise and fall with her heavy breaths. But next to me Embry stood and stared Jared down. "What the fuck are you doing, man?" he asked, something underlying in his voice that I couldn't place. His shoulders were broad and he placed himself in front of me blocking me from Jared.

Jared didn't speak but crossed his arms and I fantasized about hitting him again but this time harder and with a closed fist.

"Hello? Remy? I'm fucking speaking to you over here," Kim said, tone sharp as she waved a hand at me. Her face was flushed. "Are you gonna say anything to me?"

"Dude, why did you come here?"

"You can't just ignore me forever."

"I think it's fair, considering everything she's done."

"Why would you even tell her we were here?"

"You were supposed to be my friend, Remy."

"I'm not gonna let Kim get treated like shit."

"You've literally been ignoring me for two weeks and I didn't even do anything."

"I swear to god if you say anything to her again-"

"Honestly, Remy, I'm starting to think that Jared's not the problem here. That he's never been the problem."

And I got mad again. I got so mad that there was nothing in the world that could've stopped me from setting fire to everything and not even Embry's ability to dull my rage was enough at this point. Because it was all building up. Everything that Jared had ever said to me, every time Kim bailed on me for him, every time I braided her hair while she cried so hard over him she got snot bubbles. I was sick of it all so I stood and jumped off the table and pushed past Embry and I got real close to Kim, and I told her, "If you were my friend and you cared about me the way you said you did, you would've broken up with Jared the second you found out what he said about Briah. The amount of times he's made you cry is higher than the amount of girls he's fucked, and that's pretty fucking astronomical. You've chosen him over me over and over, and I'm tired of it."

Embry put a hand on my shoulder and pulled me back a step. "Remy-"

Kim was crying when she said, "Jared was right about you and he was right about Briah. You and your whole family, you're just so, so fucked up."

But I stepped back forward and looked at Kim's tears and felt invigorated by them. I knew she didn't mean it. I knew she just wanted to hurt my feelings. But I was feeling petty enough to let it work. "If you ever try to talk to me again, I will knock your fucking teeth out."

The car ride home was silent.

I curled up against the door, as physically as far away as I could get from Embry as possible. I listened to his breathing. I knew he wasn't happy but his breathing was low and even counting the inhales and exhales let me focus on something. And all I needed was to focus, because otherwise I might break down. It was dark out now and I couldn't see anything that wasn't in front of the headlights. I was shaking and my head was pounding and I felt like if I moved I would rip the car radio out.

Embry didn't speak and I wasn't sure if it was because he didn't want to or if it was because he thought if he did I'd lose it. I thought both were true, but when he slowed the car down and pulled over on the side of the road and spoke, his voice was gentle. I didn't look over at him when he said, "I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?"

I could sense him turning his body shifting towards me. "I'm just sorry for how things ended up. I didn't think any of that would happen. I was caught off guard, and I didn't defend you well enough."

And I turned my head to face him but kept my body distant. His stupid eyes were still glossed over. "Why would you defend me? Jared's your friend."

He sighed, shifting around like he didn't know how to answer that question. The only questions he couldn't answer started with 'why.' "I just think the way you've been treated by them isn't fair."

"Okay."

"But I don't think you should've threatened to hurt her," he said, and I turned my head back away. "I mean, I think you guys could still come back from this, but that's just-that's not you, Remy."

And I looked Embry in his stupid gentle glossy eyes and said, "Well, you wouldn't know. Because you don't know me. You know Jared and Kim and Quil and Jacob and everyone else on this stupid reservation, but you don't know me and we're not friends. Take me home."

"Remy-"

"Take me home."

He sighed, and put his truck back in drive. He didn't say anything to me for the rest of the drive and I didn't say anything to me and I intended to never say anything to him again.

And when he dropped me off I slammed the door and ran inside to down my mom's most expensive bottle of wine.


	7. chapter seven: the morning

I was woken up on a Monday morning with the ungodly sound of metal slamming against metal.

I jumped up out of bed, frazzled and heart beating too quickly in my ears, to see my mother standing at the foot of my bed with a pot and a pan in each hand. "What the fuck?"

My mother was on a mission, and I could tell because she normally jumps on the opportunity to chew me out for swearing. "Where is my wine?" she asked, voice low and commanding.

"What?" I was still rubbing my eyes and stretching out of bed and my brain wasn't awake enough to lie yet. I tried to piece together the pieces with a groggy and clouded head but my head was spinning from the banging pots and pans.

But her eyes were narrowed and she inched closer to me and I had a feeling I wasn't gonna get away with this one easily. "I had a bottle of chardonnay and now it's gone. Where is my wine?"

"I don't fucking know maybe you drank it? Jesus, what time is it?" Her hair was wild and flying away and she had an hour commute to get to her job at seven so I knew it was too fucking early for me to be having this argument.

"Do not lie to me. Tell me what happened to the wine right this second."

"How the fuck am I supposed to know?"

"Rosemary Renata Cree, tell me what happened to the wine right this second."

My stomach dropped in my gut because my mom has never used my full name since the day I was born. I have always been Remy since the day I was born and Briah has always been Bear, and the only other time he was anything else was when my mom caught him selling pot. I stood up out of bed. Her eyes were wide and red like she was up all night crying over spilled wine. I couldn't remember the last time she was like this but I felt like it was when she screamed wildly at my father in the middle of the night.

"Like I told you, I don't know what happened to your goddamn wine. You probably fucking drank it, because you drink at least a bottle every weekend, and were either too drunk to remember or were so ashamed of how drunk you get at your big age you thought you'd blame your kid."

She stared at me. My mother's not normally rendered speechless, but her eyes are glossy and my gut sinks and I know I've gone too far. "You're grounded."

"Whatever," I mumbled, turning away from her and getting back in my bed. "Can you please leave my room now?"

Even though it was probably four in the morning, my eyes were stuck open and I stared out my window as the sun rise. I was thinking that maybe I'd ditch alcohol and try some other drug.

* * *

"What are you doing at my parking spot?"

Despite the ending of our last meeting, Embry was standing near my car with a smile. His cheeriness irritated me. "I thought I'd walk you to class," he said in a way that made me wish I was way more annoyed at how happy he could be. He leaned against my car and was painfully good at maintaining eye contact. "We have first period together."

There were a lot of things I didn't like about Embry. I didn't like that he was so much taller than me that I had to tilt my head back to look him in the eye and I didn't like how he always smiled when he saw me like he was happy to see me (because he really had no reason to be, especially considering how he witnessed me glow with rage like three times now). I didn't like that he kept trying to wear me down or how it was kind of working. But, more than anything, I didn't like how I had no explanation for literally anything he did. And right now, they were all irritating me to point my whole body tensed up. "No we don't, and we never did. Didn't you and all your steroid buddies drop out to play D&D or something?" I asked, starting to walk away from my car and him.

But his strides were long and he matched my pace. "I have no idea what fifty-percent of that sentence meant, but no, I didn't drop out. No of us did. We were all...sick. But we're all better now, so we're back."

"You didn't look sick to me."

"Well, we were. All of us."

"You should really learn how to lie better. It's almost embarrassing at this point." I reached the curb and stopped, turning to look up at him. "Are you gonna keep following me around like a dog? Or am I gonna be allowed to be alone for, I dunno, five seconds today?"

Embry frowned. He was standing so close to me I noticed that the top of my head barely reached his shoulders and I felt like that was too close. "You're not usually this mean."

"How would you know? We've met five times."

To be fair, he was right. I'm not usually this mean. Usually, I have a friend that I didn't threaten to perform dental work on and a mom I can talk to, and before that I had a brother I was close with. Now, my mom thinks I'm a punk and my best friend's dating a jackass and my brother is dead, so I was left with some random guy who had never talked to me in all seventeen years of living near each other acting like we've been best buds forever. So, yeah, I was feeling a little sharp.

And he looked down at me like he was hurting over this more than me. "Listen about Kim, and Jared and everything, I know it sucks but I'm here for you, if you ever wanna talk. I know it can't be easy on you."

I didn't have anything else to say. Partially because I didn't feel the need to tell Embry anything about my well-being, but also because if I did, I was almost positive I would start throwing punches into a tree. The best I offered him was an eye-roll, and I walked into the building, hoping he would pick up the hint that I didn't want him to follow me.

But he didn't. He trotted behind me and walked so close next to me that I could feel the heat off his body. "We don't have to talk about anything if you don't want to—"

"I don't want to."

"—but I want you to know you have the option to talk to me." I didn't even know how that would possibly go. Hey Embry. I'm a little grumpy today because my mom woke me up at four in the morning to accuse me of stealing her wine, which I did, and she called me by my full name and my first thought was to try and get addicted to a different drug, and I still can't stop thinking about the look on Kim's face when I severed the last ties of our friendship. "I'm serious, Remy."

"But can't you not be? Like, I appreciate all the effort and everything, but I don't know how to make it any clearer that I'm really not in the mood for this conversation. Or any conversation. At all. With anyone"

I veered around the corner and tried to lose him but his legs were just so much goddamn longer than mine. He matched my pace like it was natural for him. And while we walked I tried not to look up at him but I knew Embry was staring down at me with his huge ass brown eyes. "Okay, well then I can just walk with you then."

I stopped, looking up at him for the first time and I kept noticing that every time I looked up at him the anger that was always somewhere inside of me just bubbled away. "Fine."

And I kept walking down the hall with my bag over my shoulder, Embry behind my other, and the stares of the people passing by all over me. Stupid kids that never talked to me stared gawked up at Embry and then looked me up and down like this was the most perplexing thing they had ever seen. And I guess, to be fair, it was a pretty intriguing sight; pretty boy Embry that grew six inches and put on twenty pounds of muscle on his first day back with short and moody little Remy Cree. I'd stare too.

Embry kept his promise while he walked behind me, not saying anything but keeping close to me. I chewed on my lip, realizing that yes, Embry did have first period with me, and he followed me into the biology classroom. I had never noticed him here before his little culty transformation. And while I stood in the doorway of the classroom and looked around and realized that there were three options for me to sit. I could sit with Kim, who I normally sat with, whose arms were firmly crossed across her chest with heavy bags under her eyes. I could sit at an empty table with Embry, who was grinning down at me. Or I could sit with Bobby Evans.

Bobby Evans was known for three things: being really hot, being really rich, and being a bitch. She was the prettiest girl that walked down these halls, probably ever, but there were rumors that the only person she had ever shown interest in was some dude in his thirties from Forks who promised to leave his wife for her but never did. Really tragic. And no one else on the res even came close to her family's wealth; there was a pretty big gap between the richest family and the second richest family. And she was a bitch, less of a bitch than me but way louder about it. From age ten to present, Bobby terrorized Kim, pulling out lame eighties coming of age movies moves on her to the point where Kim made a makeshift Bobby voodoo doll. She threw that out after a day tho.

And I looked between Kim, Embry, and her, and decided Bobby would be the most painless option.

I looked Kim in the eyes when I stepped away from Embry and walked to sit next to Bobby. And from the look in her eyes, I knew that if our friendship wasn't dead before, it definitely was now.

I sat down next to Bobby without looking at her, and kept my eyes focused down on my desk so I couldn't see Embry, Kim, or the girl sitting next to me. I chewed on my lip and pulled out my books, hoping that no one was looking at me anymore. "What are you doing?"

Bobby was furrowing her eyebrow and kept her narrowed eyes at me. "Sitting," I replied, tone clipped.

"Here?"

"Yeah, here."

She leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms and sizing me up. "Alright. You're Remy, right?" I nodded. "Aren't you friends with humpty dumpty over there?" she asked with a sly little smile and a nod in Kim's direction.

And right now, I wasn't Kim's biggest fan or anything, but the elementary level insults directed at her with unnecessary and unprovoked, and also lame as shit. "Her name's Kim," I said slowly, "and no, we're not friends."

"If you're not friends, why do you care?"

"She's not here to defend herself.

Bobby snorted. "How noble of you. Would it be better if I said it to her face?" she asked with a light little tone.

"Maybe don't say it at all," I snapped. "And maybe you shouldn't insult someone else's appearances when you can't match your foundation to your neck."

I thought she would be mad, and I thought she would snap back at me with some surface-level insult, but instead she just laughed, threw her head back and laughed. "You're so bold. It's cute."

* * *

Quil was making regular appearances at my house now. After school he would just be there, parked up in my driveway, waiting for me to unlock the front door. And now that they were actually back at school (which was actually confirmed, all of the cult boys were back in school and enrolled in class), it was like he was racing my back to my house. He would spend like, an hour or two there before he sped off in his loud and rumbling truck. And, unwilling, I would admit that I enjoyed his company. It was like hanging out with my brother again.

He chewed some leftovers he found in my fridge. "You know, your mom's cooking is awful, but it's better when it's cold."

"Oh yeah," I replied from my spot at the counter, "speaking of my mom, now that you're back at school for whatever reason I can't figure out, do you mind giving me rides in the morning?"

"What's that have to do with your mom?"

"She grounded me."

"So why do you need a ride?"

"She's taking away my car keys tomorrow."

Quil looked at me like a disappointed older brother. I was wondering if it was morally wrong of me to allow myself to get closer to him on the sole basis that he reminded me of someone I lost, and I didn't know if it made it worse that he probably knew. "What did you do, Remy?"

I shrugged, tapping my pen down on the counter. The big brother vibe really was working in his favor too, cause I couldn't look him in the eye. "Nothing really too bad. Just drank a bottle of wine of hers."

His sigh of disappointment rattled the house. I didn't know if he was aware of my preference for wines, but considering how quickly information spreads within that little circle of people and Kim's tendency to run her mouth when her feelings were hurt, I was sure he had some sort of idea. "Yeah, I'll give you rides to school and back. It's not like I go anywhere else after classes."

"Thanks," I mumbled.

"So," he started, and looked at me with wide eyes.

"So what?"

"So does the bottle of wine have anything to do with your argument with Kim? Or maybe Embry?"

Quil didn't really have any business asking me these questions and I didn't think I would answer. But I guess if I was gonna force him into this role then I guess I had to open up my mouth from time to time. "Yeah, I guess," I said with a bit of a shrug. "I didn't like being ambushed like that. Needed to cope somehow."

"How about the next time you need to 'cope,' and you can't think of anything else to do, just call me instead, alright?"

I gave him a small smile. "Yeah, sure."

He stayed around for an hour. And we sat in my kitchen and on my couch and he talked a lot about nothing and I listened. I mean, I mostly listened. I would occasionally drift off. But then, when the sun was set and the darkness settled in, there was a nose outside. A huge bang, followed by a howl. A fucking howl. It was indisputable, and it made my skin crawl and the neck on my hair stand up. And then Quil, who was slouched against the couch with his legs spread, shot up straight and looked around a little desperately. "I gotta go," he said abruptly, and shot me a little smile before running out the front door. I didn't say anything. I didn't need to.

I looked back out the door and thought about what I heard. It was a wolf; it was one of them. I stared after Quil before I shot up and ran upstairs, back to my bedroom and back to my little journal. I grabbed it and flipped through the pages, landing on the last note that was left for me. I grabbed a pen and scribbled out a little message, a quick little give me a hint, before sprinting back downstairs.

None of us really ventured out into our backyard since the day we got Bear's bones. When I stepped out there, the grass was so high it tickled the tops of my shins and I was tangled in the weeds. The line of trees that taunted me daily were there, staring back at me and tempting me with darkness. I walked towards them, slowly and unsure, and stopped halfway there.

I held the journal tightly in my grip before arching my arm back and throwing it as far as I could. It bounced off a tree, the pages flipping as it fell to the grounded and landed out of sight. I looked down at the grass that touched my skin, and looked back at the trees.

I only saw her for a second, and I couldn't describe anything about her but her hair. Orange and tight curls that reached her elbows and leaves stuck in between the strands. And while I was thinking about her hair and how heavy it must be, she disappeared. And it wasn't until she did that I started to wonder what she was doing there, standing in my backyard in the first place.

She made me feel unnerved. I didn't realize I was holding my breath.


	8. chapter eight: the ride

I didn't like being stared at. It actually took every ounce of my willpower to not chew my tongue off while three different people blatantly and unrelentingly stared at me while I pretended to focus on the biology worksheet in front of me. Kim, Embry, and Bobby I guess all collectively decided that instead of mitochondria or whatever, their focus this whole class period would be on me. And what sucked most about it was that I was really fucking bad at biology, and Bobby was way worse.

I hadn't talked to Embry since that morning he followed me into class, key word being talked. When Quil started driving me to school, Embry had been posted up at his parking spot, waiting for us. And every morning, he would walk next to me while I went to classes, and didn't say a goddamn word to me. Just walked me to my classes. And not even the classes we had together. Embry Call trailed an inch or two behind me everywhere I went, waited by the door while I sat at a desk, and then went off to his own classes. And when we did have a class together, he'd sit behind me and stare at the back of my head the whole goddamn hour. I tried to make myself think it was creepy, but I couldn't bring myself to be that bothered by it. At least he didn't say anything to me.

The same thing could not be said for Bobby. "Why is Embry Call staring at you?"

"I don't know."

"But you know he is, right?"

"Yeah."

"But you don't know why."

"No."

"Kim is staring at you too."

"Yeah I know."

"Do you know why?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

I sighed. For a girl who had never paid me attention before, bullying or not, she sure did want to talk to me. "Because her boyfriend is an asshole and she's been a bad friend and I threatened to hit her and now I'm sitting with you and one year you got everyone to call her human Shrek."

Bobby chuckled. "That was funny."

"No, it wasn't," I shot back. Bobby talked too much.

"Why do you keep defending her if you're not friends?"

"I'm not defending her. You're just not funny."

"You don't wear makeup," she stated, simply and quickly.

"Yes I do," I argued back, annoyed. Bobby's bullying style was usually just pointing out obvious flaws and exaggerating them to make her victim even more intensely aware of it, and this weird psychological picking she'd been trying to do with me was irritating. I'd rather her just tell me my nose was too big or something pointless like that so we could've both moved on.

"No," she said back to me, slowly, "you wear like mascara and lip gloss and you put pomade on your eyebrows. But you don't wear anything else and you don't really get complex with it. How did you know my foundation didn't match?"

I glared at her. "Because I'm not blind? I can tell the difference between colors."

Bobby tapped her pen against the table. Out of everyone who was staring at me, Bobby was the worst, because she had the ability to talk to me. "Do you wanna go to a party at my house on Friday?"

"What?"

She sighed, like I was being stupid. "Listen, I drove three of my friends to school that day. I talked to like four more before I walked into class, and no one told me my foundation didn't match. You're the only person who said anything. I didn't even believe you but I checked and you were right."

I gaped. "I was insulting you."

"And no one's ever done that before! Look, I know you think I'm like an unfunny caricature of a mean girl in some teen drama, but I think you're cool, and I want you to come on Friday," Bobby pleaded, and I wondered if she had ever pleaded with anyone before.

And I was kind of perplexed, because I couldn't imagine what was so special about me now that everyone decided they wanted a piece of me. "Even if I wanted to go, I couldn't. I'm grounded and my mom took my car keys."

Bobby rolled her eyes. "That's hardly an excuse. One time my parents grounded me and I still managed to make it to Seattle for the night. You can make it." The bell rang, and she stood. "By the way," she said, sliding her paper, "I'll let you copy my answers too."

Bobby Evans left me wondering what type of person she was.

* * *

I had my journal tucked under my arm. The morning after I had thrown it into the woods, I ran back out there, ready for a new and cryptic message of secrecy. But there was nothing. No new note, no clues, no hints. And that was the push I needed to start asking real questions again. I was ready to start again, clean slate with new theories. I was planning on spending my lunch period on research, digging up new theories as to why my brother was dead. And I was really ready this time, because I wasn't going to let Kim distract me. But there was a curly haired boy with a heavy lunch tray next to me, thwarting my plan.

"Shouldn't you be sitting with your friends?"

Quil looked up at me with his mouth full. This was my first day in a while eating in the cafeteria, and instead of spending time with his cult buddies, Quil reserved a table with me. We looked over at the two tables that all of the cult boys and their girlfriends had taken up. Embry, Seth Clearwater and Jacob Black were pouting at one table, while Paul Lahote, Jared and Kim were pouting at another. It was funny to see Embry with his arms crossed over his chest glaring at Jared, who was doing the exact same to him. "No," he said, swallowing, "they suck."

"I'll drink to that," I mumbled, and Quil's eyes darted to me. "Joking! Jesus, even I'm not gonna bring booze to school." Quil shook his head and dropped his attention back to his food while mine darted over to Embry, flicking back and forth between him and his buddy. "Jacob looks like shit, huh?"

Quil shrugged. "I guess. He's pretty banged up about that girl that dumped him. Honestly, I felt bad for him at first, but at this point it's pretty annoying. Won't shut up about it. Plus I think he's arguing with Paul over something."

I chewed on my tongue and tried not to make it obvious that I was staring in that direction. "Yeah I heard about that. That girl from Forks or whatever. Bella right?" And even though I was thinking about Jacob, I kept looking at the boy next to him. I didn't mean to do it, but I was so used to be stared at or followed by Embry that I never really got to look at him like this. And there was something really weird about Embry and how even though I convinced myself that he or his presence didn't' really matter to me, I couldn't stop thinking about him. Somehow, I always veered back to him.

"Yeah, Bella. She's nice."

I looked back at Quil. "You've met her?" I didn't know why I was being so nosy, and I started to miss the days where the only place I got my information from was girls whispering in class and Kim's drunken ramblings. I didn't know when I started caring.

"Yeah, a while ago. She used to come over to the reservation like every day after school to work on some bikes she got from the junkyard. And then her boyfriend came back into town and none of us had ever seen her since. It's a shame. She's pretty hot." I snorted. "What?"

"You're such a dude sometime," I said into my plate of food, and looked back up to see Embry's eyes had landed back on me. His eyes made me feel weird. I turned back to Quil, and I figured that if I couldn't sit here and research, I was at least going to try to get something out of Quil. I made a tactical move. "Hey, did I tell you I saw something weird in the woods the other day after you left?"

Quil's back straightened and his eyes flickered around the room. It was like my words sparked him. "Yeah?"

"Um, yeah," I started, "after you left I was in my backyard just um," throwing my personal journal into the woods in hopes someone in your cult would tell me your culty secret, "getting some fresh air. And I thought I saw this woman. She had like," I blew air out of my mouth, "crazy curly red hair. But like, I only saw her for a second. And then she was gone."

I watched Quil's face, waiting for some sort of response. "That's uh, pretty crazy, Rem." He took his eyes away from me for a second and nodded. "Um, I gotta go. I'll see you later. I'm driving you home right?"

Quil didn't wait for my answer. He pushed away from the table, and walked out of the cafeteria. It didn't take long for the rest of the cult boys to get up and follow, one by one they all rose from their seats and trotted out of the cafeteria, and I almost wanted to tell them it would be less suspicious to all get up at once. Jared, then Paul, then Jacob, Seth and Embry last. And before he walked out the door, he gave me one more look that felt strangely like an apology.

They were gone for the rest of the day.

I walked through the halls looking for at least one of them (not like they would be hard to spot, they were at least a head taller than everyone here). But they were all gone. Which confirmed at least one of my theories; they knew whoever I saw in the woods that day.

By the time that the last bell rang and classes were over, it became pretty clear that none of them were coming back for the rest of the day. I sat down at the pavement at the edge of the sidewalk while people ran off to their own cars or got driven home by their friends that didn't ditch classes or forget about them and I thanked god it wasn't raining.

And I sat there for about twenty minutes, watching the rest of the student body disappear from campus and thought about how much it fucking sucked to not have my own car. I stood and brushed off my legs, and that was when Embry pulled up.

I saw his truck enter the parking lot and knew within an instant that Quil sent him. My arms crossed over my chest as he sped over to my spot on the curb. His car was old, and he had one of those window cranks that took forever to roll down. I stood still while the window was rolled down painfully slowly, first revealing his forehead, then his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. I ignored the way my stomach lurched. "Hey," he said.

"Did Quil send you because he forgot about me?" I asked, deadpanned.

Embry shrugged. "Do you still want a ride?"

I didn't argue, just got in the passenger seat.

Embry really took the whole, 'not in the mood to talk' statement really far. He was humming along to some song that played on the radio, and didn't even attempt to start a conversation with me. And it bothered me, a lot. There was really no explanation for why it did, especially considering how irritated I got when he did talk to me. But he didn't say anything to me. He didn't even look at me.

It seemed kind of weird, some may even say a bit mean, to attach yourself to someone and follow them everywhere and then decide that you didn't want to talk to them anymore. My heart was beating quickly and my hands were sweating and I kept shooting glances over at Embry. His silence was driving me insane. The drive back to my house wasn't long but it sure as hell felt like it was.

And he looked so content, like he was completely unbothered by the silence. I didn't know why I wanted to talk to him, but I wasn't saying anything either. My mouth felt dry. "Here," he said suddenly, and I didn't realize he had stopped the car in my driveway.

"Thanks," I said, and waited for something from him. But he just gave me a tight smile and a wave. So I left. I got out of the car and started walking towards my front door and by the time I turned back to look at Embry he was already backing out. I felt displaced, and really fucking confused.

Embry Call was on my mind for the rest of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think! i forgot to update yesterday but i’m excited for some comments!


	9. chapter nine: the party

My mom was downstairs when I was leaving for school. She made muffins, or at least, a company made muffins and she managed to put them in the oven correctly. She was sitting at the counter and watching me as I grabbed one for me and one for Quil. "No work today?" I asked. She was normally gone by now, and I couldn't say I was exactly happy to see her.

"Your dad and I are gonna be gone tonight," she replied, tone clipped and back upright straight. "We're going out with some friends on a fishing trip and we'll be back sometime tomorrow."

"Aw, well there goes the fun family evening I had planned," I pouted, and threw my backpack over my shoulder. Though my mother hadn't really said much to me since that fun little morning we spent together, she still did everything in her power to make it clear that she was still pissed off at me, and would not be tolerating anything I said or did. Which then, in turn, made me want nothing more than to push her buttons.

She didn't have any physical reaction to my words but said, "Make sure you give Quil one of those muffins. You don't need two."

I narrowed my eyes. "Don't worry. I know how important it is for Quil to know he's your favorite child. Have fun on your trip," I replied, and stomped out the door. It was a very pointed stomp, the kind of stomp three-year-old's do when they have a temper tantrum and can't get their anger out. I brought my knee up and slammed my foot into the ground and hoped my foot when straight through the water-damaged wooden floor. I was very good at acting like a brat.

And even though I was annoyed and started pinching my inner thighs while I sat outside and waited for Quil, I felt some sort of glee at the mere convenience that both of my parents would be gone all night the one time I've ever been invited to a party on my own. It was too easy, almost, but I wasn't going to think too deeply into it. I had been thinking about how I would get to Bobby Evans' party ever since she asked me to come. I didn't want to go because I was relishing in the idea of finally achieving a higher social standard and becoming a real-life teen dream, but because high school parties were the only environment in which it's socially acceptable for me to go absolutely bonkers, and maybe even do something reckless. Nothing could be better for me.

Because ever since Kim and I had out dramatic and overdone public breakup, my life had become really fucking boring. I no longer had any excuse to get balls-to-the-walls drunk and sing along to nineties R&B or recite a true crime podcast, and my only company was Big Brother Quil and his disappointing sighs, and occasionally Embry, who acted in ways that made my head hurt. Bobby Evans may have been a bitch to almost everyone she saw for however many years, but from what I've heard about the parties she's thrown, she was a fun bitch who had a good stack of rum. I didn't know what the night would hold, but I knew that it wouldn't be me, holed up in my room, looking for big scary wolves.

Maybe if I had gotten any fresh leads, if my little pen pal had left me a new note, then I'd consider it. But there was nothing.

Quil's truck was loud and made his presence known before I could see him. I stood, and brushed off my legs as he pulled into the driveway. "Is one of those muffins for me?" he yelled from his window and smiled.

"They're both for you," I replied, and threw them in his window as I walked over to the passenger seat. "My mom said since she loves you twice as much as me, you get twice as many muffins." I hopped into the truck and slammed his door shut. "Plus she knows you eat like a monster from all the food you steal from our house."

He already had half a muffin in his mouth. "Pu' yo' sea-bel' on," he said, and swallowed. "And your mom doesn't love me more than you."

"Whatever," I grumbled, and didn't put my seat-belt on. "Do you wanna go to Bobby Evan's party with me tonight?"

Quil looked at me with a downturned mouth and furrowed eyebrows. "Aren't you grounded?"

"So what? My parents are gone for the whole night and that's basically a sign from whatever god that I should go. It's not like they're gonna find out or anything," and then I narrowed my eyes at him, "cause you're definitely not gonna fucking snitch, right?"

"No, Remy, I'm not gonna snitch," he said, rolling his eyes, "I'd rather you not break my legs."

"So are you gonna come or what?"

Quil twisted his mouth and hummed before he said, "I dunno Remy. Parties aren't really my scene. Plus I was supposed to hang out with Jacob tonight. Plus I don't really like Bobby Evans. Plus I don't want to."

"Those aren't very valid reasons," I mumbled under my breath, and sighed. "Look, I'm gonna go whether you go or not. So that just means I can go supervised, or I can go unsupervised," I said, and turned on the radio. Quil was listening to some bubblegum pop station and I flipped it on shuffle. I liked shuffle and never having to commit to one song. "It's up to you."

"Remy Cree, you are a master manipulator," he said with a groan. "Fine, I'll go. But we're leaving at midnight and you're not drinking any alcohol."

I snorted. "Sure, Quil." I looked out and watched the little houses go by. All of the houses here are rickety with chipped paint and wide lawns. Most were one story. I wondered what Bobby's house looked like.

And while the radio was switching between dad rock and club music, it landed briefly on the news. I normally wasn't intrigued by the news of the surrounding areas, as it was typically boring and had nothing to do with anything going on on the res, but when I heard the words, potential spree killer in Seattle, I sat up and kept it on this station on. "With the body count rising, authorities are questioning whether this is the work of a deadly serial killer, or a violent new gang."

Quil took his hand off the wheel and turned the radio off again. "Remy, it is too early in the morning for that depressing shit. Let's keep it light please."

"I hope that lady on the news was telling us that the deadly serial killer was on its way here and he tortures me to death because you didn't want to listen to the rest of the news and we couldn't escape."

"Me too."

I was getting used to being followed. I wasn't the most pleased with my new shadow, but I was getting used to it. So it was strange to step out of Quil's truck in the parking lot and have Embry not be there. I tried to mask my confusion, so Quil wouldn't say anything but he gave me this sort of look, like he was watching for some sort of reaction to Embry not being there, but I walked towards the building, thinking only that he might be in class.

Except that he wasn't.

I took my seat next to Bobby, who was rapidly texting, and looked around the room. In Embry's usual spot, there was no one, nothing in the space. For a moment, I spared a glance at Kim, who was, in a very bold move, giving me the smuggest look she could muster. It took everything in me to turn around and not flip her off.

"So you're coming to my party tonight?" Bobby asked, not looking up from her phone.

I turned my attention towards the door. "Uh, yeah," I replied, watching the people walking past, wondering if one of them might be him, and wondering even further why I cared so much that he wasn't here. My gut was doing that thing again; the thing where it tugs and pulls and makes me feel weird like something is missing. Why did I care? I couldn't look away from the door.

"Cool. You can show up at like ten, I guess. You're not bringing anyone right?"

"Um," I looked back at Bobby, who had been staring at me. "I'm bringing my cousin Quil. He's giving me a ride."

Bobby tilted her head and pursed her lips and while she was thinking, I looked back at the door, expecting to see Embry and for him to start staring at me and following me around everywhere but the doorway was empty. "Ateara? That's fine he's kind of-what are you looking at?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing."

Bobby rolled her eyes and leaned in real close to me and I could smell her sugary perfume. "Listen, here's the thing," she sighed, "okay, my ex-girlfriend is bringing her new girlfriend tonight, and I'm pretending to be cool with it but I'm actually not cool with it. And I don't wanna be bitter or anything, but she's actually a huge bitch, and I know she's gonna start something tonight."

I blinked. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I know that you're like," she sighed, and I never would have been able to imagine her looking so frazzled, "you're like, tough, you know? And I know that when you went to Shia Blackburn's party a while back and when that girl from Forks told Kim she was too ugly for Jared you gave her a black-eye. That's the type of energy I need from you tonight. Like, ruthless, cutthroat, y'know? Because I know something's going to happen."

For a moment, I was honored. But that was fleeting and I instantly became offended. "Did you invite me to your party to act as your security?"

"I invited you to my party because you're cool and scary and if you happen to have a few drinks and throw a few punches I'd rather them be at her," she explained with a shrug. "But I'm telling you this cause I don't want you showing up all distracted and acting weird."

"Oh my god," I groaned, "Bobby, I don't wanna go if I have to follow you around all nice and stomp out anyone who's mean to you. We're not even friends."

"You don't have to follow me around all night," she said, completely ignoring everything else I had said, "you just, ugh, I just don't wanna be unprotected. All of my friends are great and all but if something were to happen I'd be screwed. So like, I just need you in the general area in case something starts."

"What do you think is going to happen? It's your house. They're not gonna jump you." Sometimes I really felt like I was the only reasonable person in the entire world, and everyone else lived in their heads. "Wait, did you say girlfriend?"

But she pouted and said the magic words, "I'll give you fifty-dollars."

* * *

At lunch time, I ditched.

I never ditched class before; it was like the one thing I wouldn't do. But my head was clouded and everywhere I went I couldn't stop myself from looking around and peering through crowds of people for a certain pair of brown eyes, so I had to get the hell out of there. And between the fighting and Bobby and the endless thoughts about a boy I didn't care about, I had forgotten about Bear.

I walked down the street towards the beach with my journal in my hand and tried to push all the thoughts I had about Embry and his lack of appearance to the back of my head while I flipped through notes I had taken late in the night. It was concerning how easily I could forget about something that was so important to be all because I got invited to one party and one boy started talking to me and then suddenly stopped.

All the theories I had considered seemed kind of stupid now. I imagined the person who found my little book looking through and laughing at the idea that I thought bigfoot killed my brother (it's not that I really thought that, but it was more of a desperate grasp at straws). There were some that seemed a little more real, but I felt like a dumbass nonetheless. Now that I knew for sure that none of them were true, I wanted to kick myself for ever thinking that they could be.

The waves were huge today. I picked a spot on the sand and settled in. The ocean was always my favorite part of living here. It was strong, uninviting, and intimidating. There was nothing about the way the waves crashed into the shore that made you want to dive in. You respected it, but you stayed away.

I flipped to the last page of the journal to reread the last note that was given to me. I had read it a dozen times, practically had it memorized, but I felt the need to go over it again and again, like it would give me something new. And when I landed on the worn out page, there was something new.

No hints. I think you can figure it out on your own. Stay safe, stop going out at night.

And my gut dropped. My gut dropped and my heart stopped beating or it started beating faster. I didn't know the difference. All I did know was that my journal had not left my side since the last time I threw it into the woods. I was sweating and I tried to remember the last time I looked at this page and how someone could've taken this away from me and how I didn't notice. I felt sick at the notion that someone could get that close to me. I wanted to burn the notebook.

Instead, I closed it, and looked to the ocean to calm me, and thought about what I was gonna wear tonight.

"Hey."

The sound of his voice made my stomach flip, and I hated it. When I turned around he was walking towards me, emotions mixed all over his face with those dumb glossy eyes. "Hey," I said, and turned back around.

Embry sat down next to me. Close, but not too close. It figures that I was looking out for him all day and the minute I stopped he showed up. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" he asked.

"Aren't you?"

"I had some stuff to take care off," he said with a shrug. "What about you?"

It was amazing how I could spend all day wondering why Embry wasn't following me around and then the second he came around I was desperate from him to leave. "I just wasn't feeling great. Too much on my mind, I guess."

He nodded. "Quil told me you guys are going to a party tonight?"

"Are you guys like, telepathic or something?"

Embry chuckled and I was looking up at him and feeling ways I couldn't explain. It was like, the sweating and the weird heartbeat were gone and all of my nerves just dissipated and around him I was calm. And even though it felt kind of nice, I kind of hated it, because being calm wasn't any part of who I was. "It feels like that sometimes," and then he looked me in the eyes and said, "just be safe tonight, okay?"

With a chuckle, I said, "Does everyone think I lack the capacity to take care of myself? I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. I know how to box."

He gave me a pointed look. "I think that's what everyone's worried about."

And I didn't know why but I wanted to keep talking to him and to just sit there on the beach for as long as I could and just talk to him but I couldn't even think of anything to say. I felt so stupid. I felt like someone else. I smiled.

"You're being nice today," he said suddenly, and I shot him a look. "I mean, not to say you're a mean person or anything, but sometimes you're kind of, well I mean, you're just nicer today."

I shrugged. "I forgot to take my mean bitch pills this morning. I'll double up on the dosage tomorrow."

"You're not a bitch," Embry said quickly, and a little bit intensely. "You just don't let people treat you badly, and you're not really afraid of anything or anyone. I think that's nice."

I wanted to tell him how wrong he was, and how I was afraid of literally everything ever since I saw the snarling wolf and the shrill laugh and how it's been haunting me in my dreams. But I just said, "Thanks."

Embry smiled at me. "C'mon. I'll walk you home."

* * *

"Are you sure you wanna go to this stupid thing?" Quil asked as he trailed behind me, dragging his feet and his voice. "Like, we don't have to go. Nothing is stopping us from not going."

"Shut up," I said, and grabbed the doorknob, "we're already here."

It took me about three seconds after I opened the door to lose Quil. There were a lot of people there, so many that it made Bobby's huge house (which was about the size of about six of my houses) look crowded and tiny. I didn't even know this many people, and I was pretty sure the amount of people in Bobby's house was greater than the entire population of the reservation. Now I had been to my fair share of parties, but they weren't even half the size of this one. And I was perplexed.

I pushed my way through the throngs of people dancing (and by dancing I mean gently swaying while having bland and drunken conversation) to try and find the kitchen. The kitchen was the crown jewel of all parties, as that was where the cold and unopened alcohol was, and if I was going to be here to fight Bobby's ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend (which, 1. that was a thought that made my head hurt, and 2. who knew, I guess the thirty-year old boyfriend thing wasn't true) I was going to be drunk. I would be drunk and fifty-dollars richer.

The Evans family kitchen was large, open, and full of granite. And while I grabbed a cup and a bottle of rum, I thought about how rich people loved granite in their kitchens. My mom had to build our own kitchen tops but I bet the Evans had someone who makes as much money as my dad installed theirs for them and I poured coconut rum to the rim of the cup and started drinking.

The first sips of rum were always the best. I savored it and the warmness because I knew pretty soon that this shit would taste disgusting.

"There you are!" I heard Quil exclaim while I was chugging the contents of my cup. I was about halfway through and when I heard his voice I choked. "Don't bail on me Remy, fuck. What are you drinking?"

"Water," I said, still coughing from the rum that went down the wrong side of my throat. "I'm thirsty," I said, before going in again.

"Fucking hell, Remy!" Quil snapped, and pulled the now almost empty cup from my lips, "I can smell it, dumbass. Listen," he said, taking my cup and tossing it in the nearby trash. "You said that if I came you wouldn't drink."

I was already feeling it in my veins. "Quil, I said sure sarcastically. C'mon, be serious for a second, did you think I was actually gonna show up to a party with free alcohol and not drink? I mean, seriously. And you're calling me a dumbass?"

Quil groaned, leaning backwards and he said to himself, "Embry's gonna fucking kill me."

And before I could say anything to that, there was a tugging on my arm. I whipped around and felt dizzy. '"Remy," Bobby said, tugging on my bicep, "holy shit you are strong," she started poking the muscles in my upper arm and then looked at me with big eyes and a big smile, "Flex for me?"

I stared at her, deadpanned. "No."

"Ugh, okay fine. But c'mon, Wendy's here."

"You dated a girl named Wendy? Echg." I looked back over at Quil and shrugged. "Sorry, I'll be right back." He stared in incredulity as I reached over and grabbed the bottle of rum before being pulled away completely by Bobby.

Her hand was tight around my wrist as we pushed through the people in the living room and dining room and all the other rooms that my poor, very not rich family didn't have and I drank some of the rum on the way. Bobby brought me to the back of her house and pushed open a glass door, and I was blown away. Her backyard was huge, with a patio and a bonfire and a stupid fucking hot tub. It was so nice and her family was so rich it made me mad.

I took another sip.

"Hey guys!" Bobby said in a sugary voice to a group of people sitting around a fire. They were all pretty and they were all girls and most of them were white with a lot of makeup. "This is my friend Remy," she said, smiling back at me, and I raised the rum as a greeting. "Remy, this is Max, Amber, Wendy, Lily and Jenny." Her voice was so different when she talked to them compared to when she talked to me. "What did I miss?" she asked, and pulled me down to sit beside her by the fire.

And then, I blacked out.

Or at least, I tried my hardest to. Because I thought, okay, if I was gonna be stuck talking to a group of girls I didn't know or care about, then I was at least gonna do what I came to do: get drunk. And every time someone said something and I found it to be annoying or had no idea what they were talking about, I drank, which resulted in the bottle being almost empty within a forty-five minute window. They laughed loudly and I watched them, trying to figure out who was who and put faces to names but I was having a hard time because they all kind of looked the same and my eyes were starting to droop.

Wendy was, the girl sitting across from me with feathery blond hair and a bird like face with wide blue eyes and she was holding hands with the girl on her right. It was either Amber or Max, I couldn't remember, and Wendy kept giving Bobby these little half glances with a sly little smirk that lifted one side of her face. She was like a cartoon character.

I couldn't keep track of their conversations but I lifted my head when they started talking about the cult boys. I think it was Jenny, the girl with the butterfly clips in her hair who went to my school, who said, "No I'm not even kidding, they all dropped out of school and then came back like, I dunno, a month later with huge muscles and tattoos. And they would walk around the reservation in big groups and they like, never wear shirts."

Another girl giggled. "I wish they'd come to my school."

But Bobby snorted. "No you don't. They're a bunch of self-righteous hall monitors. All they did was take a bunch of steroids and now they just stare at people and act creepy all the time." Bobby flicked her eyes at me for just a second. "They're fucking weird."

"No Bobby's right," said the girl holding Wendy's hand. I was thinking it was Amber, and she looked Bobby in the eyes while she spoke. "They're really creepy and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they were in some weird sacrificial cult."

Wendy chuckled. "Do you think they killed that guy last year?" she said with a laugh, like this was a cute little lighthearted conversation topic. "I mean, they found his body in the woods and aren't they always hanging out in the woods? I mean, I know they said he offed himself but I bet they just staged it like that. He probably didn't stand a chance."

Bobby looked at me like she was excited and nervous for what was about to happen and I bet she could see the waves of rage radiating off of me. I knew that she didn't know, and there was no way that this girl from outside the res had any idea what happened to Bear or what the cult boys were like, but she insinuated that Quil, who was probably running around this stupid party trying to find me and make sure I was safe, could've hurt Bear, my Bear. So I said, "Shut the fuck up."

Wendy raised an eyebrow at me. "Excuse me?"

"Don't talk about things you don't know," I said, shaking my head. My eyes were so heavy from the rum. I took a sip. "If you're gonna come on to our reservation you better not make stupid accusations against the people who live here. You're an outsider, act like it."

She snorted. "Dude, it's just a theory it's not that deep."

I could feel the nerves from Bobby when I stood and looked her in the eyes. "You're talking about my dead brother and my cousin, so yeah, it is that deep, Becky."

"First of all, my name is Wendy."

"I don't give a fuck."

This was the moment Bobby was waiting for, and what she would hopefully pay me for. And when she opened her mouth to say something back, my eyes caught something in the background, by the edge of Bobby's backyard, in the trees. He was standing there like the red-headed girl was, straight and poised with leaves all over him. I stared, and for a while too because I was afraid if I looked away he would disappear. I could hear Wendy's yapping but I couldn't bring myself to listen to a single word. I started walking towards him, hands shaking. I didn't care about Wendy or Bobby or the money but for good measure, when I passed Wendy I tossed the remainder of rum in her face and dropped the bottle in her lap. And I kept going.

Bear didn't move as I walked towards him, and I walked slowly because I didn't want to scare him off. I felt cold. I couldn't breathe and I didn't think about moving my legs; they just did it on their own. He looked so much like himself it made me feel sick. I was getting closer to him and I was so mad that Bobby's backyard was so big. I was almost there; I was close enough to see the details in his face and there were tears brimming in my eyes and then he was gone. He turned his back and walked into the woods and he was gone again.

I ran.

I sprinted after him and thought I might throw up but I knew I saw Bear and I knew he was in there and when the branches of trees hit my face I kept running past them because I knew Bear was in the woods and he was alive. I saw him and he was alive. I was breathing heavy and I didn't know where I was running but I kept going anywhere. I started yelling his name. My voice sounded different in my ears and all I could see was trees. My head was spinning and my legs felt heavy like concrete. I didn't know where I was.

My foot caught on something and I didn't know what it was but I was on the ground. My nose slammed into the ground and I groaned and the fall made my head hurt worse. The dirt under me rubbed into my face and I wanted to cry because I was almost certain I had lost Bear again and maybe this time was forever. I thought that I had lost him forever last time but losing him forever twice sucked even more. I wanted to pound my fists into the ground and scream but I just sat there and I buried my head in my arms and I cried.

I heard footsteps approaching and I thought for a second it might be the serial killer from the news and I didn't really care because seeing Bear tore me open and I felt raw and unhinged.

"Remy what the fuck are you doing?"

It was just Quil. I looked up at him with my stupid makeup running all over my dumb face from dumb tears and I was really cold. "Hi Quil," I said, rubbing my face into my arms. "Fun party, huh?"

He sighed. "Come on, Remy. Let's go home. You can tell me what happened after you shower," Quil said, and it sounded like a reasonable idea but my head was spinning and I wanted to puke because I had so much rum and I didn't even get to eat the muffin and I was missing something.

"No," I said, and wiggled against the ground as if that would root me in the dirt like a tree. And I surprised myself by saying, "I want Embry here." And when I said it out loud I realized that it made so much sense, and if I was gonna hate Kim and if Bobby was gonna pay me to hear ugly girls talk about my brother, Embry was gonna be my new best friend.

"Remy," he groaned, "it's almost one in the morning. I don't even know if he's awake right now."

"That's okay. I'll wait here until he wakes up."

"Oh my fucking god."

And I couldn't see anymore and I wasn't sure if it was because I went blind or because I just couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I wanted to throw up. I threw up. Quil groaned. "I wanna see Embry," I whined, wiping the corner of my mouth with my sleeve.

"Okay fine!" he snapped, and I heard the dialing of a phone. "Embry's gonna fucking kill me," he said for the second time that night, and then, in a sharper tone, said, "and I'm gonna fucking kill you, Remy."

I laughed. It was an ugly laugh with a big snort. "Love you, Quil," I sang.

"Hey...no, dude I know...no she's fine, I mean, sort of fine...okay she's in rough shape, but she's asking for you...okay, yeah...fine, see you then." I heard Quil sigh. "Okay, c'mon Remy, open your eyes. We're going to see Embry."

I opened my eyes and Quil did not look happy but I outstretched my arms towards him and said, "Carry me?"

"Remy," Quil said in a sharp tone, "you are so lucky you're like my little sister," he said, and picked me up off the ground and flung me over his shoulder. "But if you puke on me, I will kick your ass."

"I have never puked before in my life. Don't worry."

I didn't know where Quil was taking me but that was in part due to the fact that I kept my eyes closed the entire time. It was a bumpy ride, though, and I could feel each step Quil took in my gut. My head was detached from my body and I couldn't stop giggling or poking Quil's back. He didn't say anything to me, but the ride suddenly stopped when I heard a car door open and I was thrown into the backseat of a truck. "You're really strong," I said to Quil and stretched out along the cushions, "I weigh six tons."

"Jesus Christ, alright," Quil mumbled, and then slammed the door shut. He moved to the front and started up the truck and when he drove I felt the bumps of rocks under tires on my back. "I rolled down the windows in case you have to puke. Puke outside the window. Again, if you puke in my truck, you will not be spared. I will kill you. Okay Remy? I will kill you."

I didn't really listen to what Quil was saying anymore because I was staring at the roof of the truck and thinking about how soft it would be to touch and wondered what stars were just out of my reach. I couldn't believe that Bear was alive. I smiled and laughed and I couldn't stop laughing and everything just felt so good all of the sudden and I was so excited to sit next to Embry.

Quil didn't drive for long cause it's a small reservation and I guessed everyone lived so close to each other that it didn't even matter where we were. And while Quil parked the car in a spot I couldn't see I thought about how far away from Texas we were. "He'll be out in a second," Quil said, and my heart was all over my body.

The door opened to the sound of, "Quil, I am going to fucking kill you."

"Yeah, I know."

I sat up straight and moved to the side so there was room for Embry to sit next to me, because I really liked it when Embry sat next to me. I was smiling when he looked over at me and took the spot I made for him. "Hey, Remy, are you okay?" he asked in the most gentle voice.

And instead of responding, I popped my head out of the window and threw up.

There was a hand on the back of my head, stroking my hair while I hung out the window, limp at the neck. "What the fuck happened? You said you were gonna take care of her."

"I tried dude. There were so many people there I couldn't keep track of her. We walked in and she found herself liquor within five minutes and then she got taken away by some group of girls so I thought she was gonna be fine. But then I went to check on her and she was gone and drank the whole fucking bottle and I found her out in the woods crying on the ground."

I puked again, but Embry's hand was warm and made it suck way less. "What was she doing in the woods?"

"I don't know! She wouldn't tell me! I feel like I'm babysitting a toddler."

I was panting and my mouth tasted foul. I wanted water. My head was throbbing and my face was cold so I dropped back into the truck and leaned my head against Embry's shoulder. "Does anyone have water?"

My eyes were fluttering shut and Embry's skin was really warm. It was so warm it made my face flush and there was the sound of shuffling before someone shoved plastic in my hands. I wrapped my lips around it and drank. The water was lukewarm but it soothed my throat and my stomach. "Alright, well just drive to her house. I'll make sure she goes to sleep safe and doesn't drown in her own vomit."

There was a sternness in Quil's voice when he said, "If you fucking try anything with her-"

"Who do you think I am?" Embry snapped back.

And even though I couldn't see and I felt like my body was on a different planet, I could tell there was a tenseness when Quil started driving again. Embry's shoulder was stiff but he brought his hand to my hair and started stroking it again. It was peaceful and quiet and uncomfortable but I felt myself drift in and out of it. And I could hear Quil and Embry talking and I felt the vibrations in his chest but I didn't know what was going on.

Before I could get a grasp on reality, I was being lifted out of the truck once more and I was in strong arms. The cold air was on my skin but Embry was warm like a blanket. He carried me through the cold and then there was a brightness behind my eyelids and the wood creaked under his feet. And I was placed somewhere new again, soft, in my own bed. And Embry's arms were gone and before I could stop myself I mumbled, "Don't leave."

Embry's voice came from somewhere distant. "I'm not gonna leave just yet," he said, and I didn't want to open my eyes. "There's a bucket by the side of your bed."

"I'm not gonna choke on my own puke."

"Right, because I'm here."

"Can I tell you a secret?"

"You can tell me anything."

And I opened my eyes and sat up and looked at Embry. He was sitting in my desk chair and rolled it to face me and he was smiling. "I saw Bear in the woods today."

His smile fell, and I dropped back into bed. "Bear, like your brother?"

"Yeah. He's alive," I mused. "Goodnight, Embry."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of my favorite chapters!! hit me w ur thoughts!!


	10. chapter ten: the date

My brain was pulsating when I regained consciousness. I didn't open my eyes but groaned over the nausea and pounding inside my skull. And before my brain could string together any thoughts or recollections, my stomach bubbled and my eyes shot open to look for the bucket on the side of my bed. The contents of my stomach burned on their way out and the sun that shone through my window made my skin feel hot. There was a lot in my stomach to begin with but I hiccuped and heaved until I spit something out.

In the middle of my puking and dry-heaving over the side of my bed, a warm hand was placed on the small of my back. At the touch, the cells in my body were electrified and I shot up and pulled my fist back and plunged it into the nose of the intruder.

Embry stumbled back, hands cupping his nose and groaning. At the sight of him, I gasped, cupping my mouth with my hands in surprise. And it all came back to me, throwing rum in that girl's face, seeing Bear in the woods, crying on the ground until Quil called Embry. My face flushed and I felt so stupid I could cry at the memory of my own voice begging, don't leave. I figured Embry was pretty annoyed, going from begging him to stay to punching him in the nose the next morning. "Fuck, I'm sorry! I forgot you were here."

"Ugh," he moaned, rubbing his nose. He looked up at me with glossy eyes and chuckled. "Damn, Remy, maybe you're the one on steroids."

Everything always happened too early in the morning, many hours before my brain was up to appropriate processing speeds. I had to take a minute to gape at Embry, who was standing in the middle of my room with gym shorts and a hoodie and messy hair and my face turned beat red at the memory of him carrying my limp body into my house and the question of where he slept last night. "You stayed all night?"

Now it was his turn to look sheepish, avoiding eye contact and taking a step back. "I was just worried. You threw up a lot last night and no one else is here and, I dunno, I just didn't want anything bad to happen." I stared at him with narrowed, skeptical eyes. "I just slept on the chair," he said quickly, gesturing to my desk chair, "and you asked me not to leave, so I thought it was okay."

"Alright," I settled on, knowing I didn't really have the right to feel outraged and also, I guessed I wasn't really that upset in the first place. There was something nice and warm about a boy I barely knew sleeping in an uncomfortable chair all night just so he could hold my hair back while I vomited. And there was something about the softness in Embry's face that made me think I didn't really have the capability of getting that mad at him. "Um, thanks, then, I guess."

Silence settled between the two of us and I stared at him, wondering if he was going to leave, or just continue to stand there. His mouth was puckered and brow scrunched and he looked at me with an unreadable expression before he spoke again. "Hey, can I just ask you something?"

Instantly, my stomach was filled with nerves, because though I remembered the big pieces of last night (which were embarrassing enough on their own), I was sure there were smaller, worse details that Embry remembered. "Uh, yeah, sure," I said hesitantly.

Before he spoke, I kept thinking in my head, please don't ask why I called for you, please don't ask why I called for you, because I didn't really have any sort of answer for that. I didn't even know why; all I knew that, in that moment, there was nothing I wanted more than to be with Embry and just talk to him, and I would have rather shoot myself in the fucking foot than say that to him. Worse than that, the feeling never really went away. "Um, last night, before you went to sleep, you said that you saw your brother."

My limbs felt weak and my jaw locked. "So what's your question?"

Embry sighed. "I was just wondering if you could like, I dunno, explain more? Like, what happened?"

I chewed on the inside of my cheek and looked around the room. Before I answered, I asked myself if I could trust Embry. Even though he was making more and more frequent appearances in my life, and he was the first thing on my mind when I started puking, I didn't really know him. And I had to keep reminding myself of that little fact, because when he was standing across from me and I was looking into his deep and dark eyes, I felt like I've known him for my whole life, like I'd known him in other lifetimes. "You won't tell anyone?" I asked.

"I won't tell a soul."

I shuffled to the edge of my bed and Embry sat back down on the chair. I took a deep breath and looked in his eyes because I knew that for whatever dumb reason they calmed me down. "I was outside with Bobby and her friends, and I was arguing with one of her friends and then while she was talking I looked past her and I just saw him there. And like, I knew it was him when I first saw him. Then he turned around and walked back into the woods and I followed him. That's why I was in the woods when Quil found me."

Embry's expression was stone cold. "Was there anything different about him?" he asked, voice sharp and jagged and unlike anything I had ever heard come out of his mouth before.

"What?"

He sighed and moved closer to me. "Like, anything about the way he looked? Was anything different about him? Like his eyes or something?"

I stared blankly at Embry. "I tell you I saw my dead brother alive and well in the woods and that's the first thing you ask me?"

Embry's eyes softened at my words. "Oh, shit, Remy," he let out a heavy breath, "are you okay?"

And I cursed myself, because his first question was a lot easier to answer than his second. Seeing Bear at the edge of the woods felt like a lot of different things, and all of the emotions were too fleeting to even catch onto. I didn't know if I should be hopeful or heartbroken or register for a therapist. "I don't remember, because at that point I had an entire bottle of rum, and I didn't really get close to him," I answered, feeling a bit more reserved than before.

Embry bumped his fists into his knees while he kept his lips in a tight line. "Remy," he said, and then leaned back in the chair and pressed his palms into his knees. He leaned forward again and rubbed his eyes and it was like I could almost see the war he was raging against himself in his head. "I'll help you find him."

My eyes widened. "What?"

Embry leaned forward so his face was close to mine and his voice was soft and gentle like he always was. "I'm gonna help you find your brother. I''ll help you figure out what happened to him and where he went."

"And what if it wasn't real and it was just some hallucination I had?"

"Then I guess we'll find that out."

"And what if I say I don't need your help?"

"Then I would help you anyways."

There was blood in my mouth as I chomped off bits of my cheek. I didn't like how this was making me feel, or I didn't like that it was making me feel good. There was so much and it was so overwhelming and Embry just kept looking at me with those dumb glossy eyes and I wanted to trust him so badly. "Alright," I agreed.

"I promise I'll do whatever I can to help you figure this out, Remy," he said with such sincerity it made my mouth dry.

"Okay, but can you leave now? I rolled around in dirt and threw up everywhere last night so I'd really like to shower," I rushed, standing. I was starting to feel uncomfortable with the genuineness. There was this certain intimacy with which Embry said his words that made me feel vulnerable in front of him, like he had emotionally undressed me.

He stood with me. "Okay," he said with a warmness in his voice, and stared down at me for a moment before grabbing me in his arms and pulling me into the tightest hug I could imagine. His skin was scalding, and his hold on me so tight I thought he had cracked my back. I kept my arms down at my side while my cheek pressed against his chest. He pulled away from me, looking flustered. "Um, I'll see you later," he said with a little smile, and then jumped out my fucking window.

Embry Call made my head hurt.

The shower water was so hot it fogged up the mirror before I even stepped under the water. The hotter it was, the cleaner I felt. And as I scrubbed every spec of dirt off every inch of my body, I thought about Bear in the woods, and the probabilities and possibilities. There was one thing I knew for sure, that that was my brother. And from the way he moved and the shadow he cast, I was confident in the fact that it wasn't a hallucination. But I was also confident in the fact that a man with plastic gloves presented my entire family a pile of dirt covered bones they promised was Bear. And I couldn't deny that.

And even if those bones were someone else, someone else's son, there was no good explanation for Bear being stuck in the woods. He loved his family, he loved me, I knew that much. And even if by some weird circumstance, he got lost in the land he had lived and explored his entire life, there's no possible way that he went a whole year without anyone seeing him. The woods were littered with hunters and hikers and people sneaking around to smoke weed. He couldn't have been avoided for that long. And even further than that, if Bear was standing at the edge of the woods at someone's house after being lost in the woods for two years, he wouldn't turn around. Especially not after seeing me.

The only logical thought I could muster was that something happened to change him. Something got to him and twisted around his insides and fucked up his brains and made him different and that's the only thing that could have possibly made him walk away from me and when I thought about what those things could have been, I threw up again. I couldn't bear to imagine the fucked up things that had happened to him.

And I didn't want to get my hopes up, but I had settled on one definite thought, and that was that Bear was alive. My big brother was alive, and I was going to find out what happened to him.

My phone was ringing when I stepped out of the shower and I didn't have the number saved. I answered it with caution. "Hello?"

"Oh my god Remy, last night you were perfect!" the low and raspy voice of Bobby shouted into my ear. "I mean, the whole running off into the woods thing was a little weird, I'll admit, but almost no one noticed because Wendy was throwing a fucking fit. She left like, right after and so did Amber. God she's such a bitch. Anyways, it was great, I owe you one."

"No," I chided, "you owe me fifty-dollars."

There was a laugh on the other line. "Right, I didn't forget. Do you wanna hang out tonight? I'm kinda in the mood to go to Port Angeles, cause there's this new art-house film about this doctor who has to choose a member of his family to kill and I heard it's really good."

My head was spinning. "Um, I don't know if I'm still grounded or not."

"You said you were grounded until Friday. It's not Friday anymore. Okay? You're coming."

I groaned. "Why even ask if you're just gonna make me?"

"To be polite. I'll be over your place around six." And she hung up on me.

There must have been some weird trait about me that attracted forceful girls that liked to talk a lot. And then I thought of her.

Thinking of Kim was always a mistake, because when I thought of her, I didn't think of the girl with a raw voice and bloodshot, teary eyes. I thought of the girl who hugged me late at night in my bed, while I screamed and sobbed and cried over my brother's dead body. And the girl who listened to my long and probably boring rants about the screaming matches my parents got into. The girl who invited my to sleepover her house every weekend and watched Ghost Hunters with me even though she thought it was stupid, and laughed with me until she snorted at three in the morning over something dumb and forgettable. I thought about the girl she was before Jared.

I tugged at the ends of my wet hair and looked through the last couple texts she had sent me, begging me to talk to her. I promise I can fix this. You're my best friend. I miss you, Remy. Please call me back. I thought that maybe that girl was still in her somehow.

I typed out, Can we talk? And stared at the message for a long time before I erased the message and threw my phone down on the ground.

* * *

"Have you ever seen a movie with such perfect scoring? I mean, most horror movies use really sharp string instruments in every scene, but it didn't even feel like an intrusion on the scene like most scoring does. It just enhanced it so well."

"I didn't know you were so into movies," I said, sipping on the extra large slushie I got and didn't finish that made me get up to pee three times during the movie. "I appreciate the twenty-minute critical analysis though."

Bobby was bouncing down the sidewalk like physiological thrillers gave her an adrenaline rush. She wore this cute little plaid skirt that moved with her and her hair flowed behind her, straight and perfect. "I'm sorry I just haven't seen a film that good in a while. I mean, it was like, the whole time you knew what was gonna happen, but you were hoping for something else. Like, imagine that? Imagine knowing you're gonna have to do something horrible to someone you love and there's nothing you can do to stop it?"

"Hmmm."

"Alright," Bobby said, exasperated, "if film's not your thing, what is?"

It was dark out and there were a lot of people on the streets. I felt uneasy. "I'm into philosophy."

"Okay, so give me your philosophical perspective on it. What does Remy the philosopher have to say about it?"

"I dunno, it's like one of those like, ethical thought experiments, I guess. Like, what's the most ethical thing to do in that situation, emotions aside. Is it more ethically justifiable to kill one member of the family to keep the others safe, or to do nothing, and let them all die?"

Bobby grinned at me. She was my height, and it was nice, for once, to line up perfectly with someone, instead of having to tilt my head back up at them. "So what's more ethically justifiable?"

I kicked a crumbled up bit of trash and bit on the straw. "Well, that depends on what you believe. Utilitarianism is one stance, which basically means everything you do has to serve utility. Like, every action you do has to help the most amount of people. So I'd kill one member of my family, doesn't matter which one, and serve the most amount of utility. If I was deontologist or believed in rights-based ethics, I wouldn't kill anyone, because what matters more was that I didn't violate anyone's rights, and my intentions in not killing them were pure."

"Yeah, but what do you believe?"

I shrugged. "I guess I'd pull the trigger. What about you?"

"I'll say that I would kill one of them, but I think that if it came down to, I wouldn't be able to do it. I don't think I'd have the ability to actually kill anyone, nevermind someone in my family, y'know? Like you said, it's like a thought experiment, but thought experiments are also so different from reality."

I had to laugh. "Yeah, dumbass, that's why they're called thought experiments."

Bobby pursed her lips and gave me a playful little shove with a giggle but I was sobering up at the light of flashing blue lights and the crowd of people a little bit behind the parking lot her car was at. "Wait," I said, grabbing onto her arm and halting her next to me. She faltered, looking over the cop cars. We shared a look, and then rushed over to the scene.

There was a thick wall of people blocking the center of the commotion, and I stood on my toes to try and get a glimpse at what happened. "What's going on?" Bobby asked me, holding onto my wrist.

"I don't know," I said, shaking my head.

With Bobby attached at the wrist, I pushed past the crowd and wedged my way up to the front. But when I saw limp pale hand that had dangled out from a white bag, I felt like gravity was pushing down extra hard on my shoulders. "Holy shit," Bobby gasped beside me, tightening her grip on wrist. "Oh my god, Remy."

The skin was so pale. I couldn't stop looking at it. It was unnaturally white, like every drop of blood had been drained. I felt dizzy. "We gotta get out of here," I said to Bobby, feeling breathless.

She nodded. "Let's go."

We didn't say much to each other on the car ride home. Her knuckles were tight against the steering wheel, and my throat felt dry. "Well that sucked," I mumbled after a while.

"At least the movie was good," she said, not looking away from the road. "You know I gotta say, that was the most eventful night I've had in awhile." She chuckled. "And even considering the dead body, it was still more fun than anything else I could've been doing tonight."

"Did you see how white the hand was? It was like there was no blood or anything."

"Remy, that's just what white people look like." I gave her a sharp look. "But you're right, I guess."

I could see the moon from the passenger window, and I watched it as we drove down the smooth pavement. I wanted to focus on something else but I kept thinking about the limpness and the whiteness and maybe Bobby was right but it didn't feel natural. Or maybe I was just unsettled about seeing a corpse in the middle of the street and I wondered how that person could've died on a busy city street on a Saturday night without anyone doing anything to stop it.

We didn't talk again until she pulled into my driveway and said, "I promise the next time we hang out, there won't be a dead body."

I hopped out of the car. "Then I'm not coming," I joked with a weak little smile, and slammed her car door shut.


	11. chapter eleven: the white lie

Remy Cree was the scariest person that Embry had ever seen.

And that was before he imprinted on her.

There were rumors about her, and about her brother. About how she slammed her fists into the faces of people who disrespected her brother or her friend until her knuckles were bruised and bloodied. About how she accompanied her brother on his drug deals and carried a knife in her pocket in case anything went wrong. And coupled with the way she carried herself down the halls, with her eyes narrowed and hands balled into tight, bruised fists, Embry always thought it would be better to just avoid Remy Cree.

But when he saw her eyes for the first time, wide and wild, he fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the everything of Remy. He knew that his days of avoiding her were done, and that he'd do anything to see her again, even if she was about a million times scarier than she was before. Because how was he supposed to tell a girl with a tongue that sharp and a bite that was even sharper, that they were basically soulmates, and there was nothing she could do to stop it?

"With patience," Sam had told him the same night he imprinted, and Embry laughed humorlessly. It was annoying to hear that coming from Sam. God knows he had a hell of a time telling Emily, and she basically had the patience of a saint. He didn't know Remy. Remy was feral; she was sharp and snarling and he loved it but goddamn it was so fucking scary to him. How was he supposed to talk to her? Remy wasn't just a girl. She was his imprint; she was his everything and she looked at him like she was ready to bite his head off. The consequences of fucking up were unimaginable. He felt sick if he went a day without seeing her.

But when he jumped out of her bedroom window, he felt different. He knew it was different. Remy wanted him. And not just to use him as a distraction or an excuse to not talk to Kim. She wanted him in her most vulnerable moment, when she was weak and tired and shaken. It was like he could still feel the way her head felt resting against his shoulder. Her skin was cold and clammy and she was covered in the foul scent of her own vomit, and the first thing she did when she saw him the next morning was throw a pretty hard punch directly into his nose (which really surprised him, he wasn't expecting that hit to make him stumble, and it filled him with some weird sense of pride), but it was still the best night of his life.

Embry figured that was kind of pathetic.

Especially considering it was paired with the potentially gut-wrenching news that her brother, who was presumed to be dead, might have been turned. Embry didn't like the way that thought felt. It was unsettling and weighed down on him while he rushed away from Remy's house and into the woods, waiting until he was far enough away that his little transformation couldn't be seen.

It felt good, stretching out like that, and running between the trees. He was fast, faster than he thought possible. It was one of the best non-Remy related feelings he had ever experienced, falling second only to sinking his teeth into some ice cold marble monster.

What sucked though, was that his thoughts were immediately crowded by the often stupid and annoying thoughts of his pack mates. And he tried to keep his thoughts quiet, thinking only of the leaves on the ground in front of him en route to Emily's house. But he couldn't keep the quick images of Remy in his arms while he carried her up to her room from flashing through his brain, and that was the wrong thing to think of.

Ohhhhhh. Embry got fuckin' luckyyyyyy.

Man c'mon that's my cousin.

Quil's cousin got luckyyyyy.

Shut the fuck up.

Even though Paul's incessant teasing was irritating, it was just irritating at worst. There was nothing Paul would say that would make him boil with rage. Embry didn't want to think about how Jared would react to the images of Remy puking up alcohol. He didn't want Jared to think he was right about Remy. Even if she did punch him in the nose.

She punched you in the face? I love her.

I'm ignoring you.

Their taunts echoed in his head as he approached the woods surrounding Emily's house. They were harmless but he had bigger things on his mind. He phased back with ease, and tossed his clothes back on so quickly he didn't even realize he had put his shorts on backwards. He ran towards the front door with pine needles in his shoes and didn't bother announcing his arrival before entering.

Embry walked into the kitchen to see Sam standing at the counter and Jared at the kitchen with his legs kicked up and he was mad instantly. It was so amazing what Remy could do to him. Before, he and Jared were close. Jared was the one who supported him the most when he first phased, when he had to cut off his friends and his mother was constantly crying over his actions. And he knew the way Jared treated Remy was wrong before he imprinted, but now he couldn't even look at Jared without rage pulsing through his veins at the memory of what he said to Remy.

The feeling was almost mutual, and they hadn't had any interaction since Embry bit a chunk out of him for letting Kim ambush Remy the one night they got to spend together.

So Embry looked right past Jared, and said to Sam, "I need to talk to you."

Sam raised a brow. "So talk to me."

Embry sighed. "In private."

"Just say it Embry," Sam snapped, "I'm tried of your little feud. You're both brothers, so just spit it out. Alright?"

Embry's jaw locked. "Remy said she saw her brother in the woods last night."

And Jared opened his mouth to say something, and there was some sadistic glint in his eyes that put Embry on edge, but Sam, whose expression had drastically changed, put his hand in front of him to silence him. "Alright, let's go outside."

Embry gave a curt nod, and turned on his heel out into the yard. He leaned against the railing of Emily's porch and watched as Sam followed him out and closed the door behind him. "Okay," he said, standing straight over Embry, "what happened?"

"Remy went to a party last night and got pretty drunk. Quil called me and I went over to take care of her, make sure she went to bed safe and everything. And before she fell asleep she told me she saw Briah in the woods, alive. And she tried to chase after him, but he disappeared." Embry sighed, and rolled his head. "I asked her if she noticed anything different about him, like his eyes, but she said she wasn't close enough to notice."

And Sam gave him this look, this look of concern and disbelief that made Embry uneasy. "Embry," he said with a sigh, "you believe that she really saw her brother?"

"Yeah," he asserted, "I do. And you should too."

Sam shifted the weight between his feet and looked around. "Okay. We'll keep an eye out."

"That's it? You're just gonna keep an eye out?"

There was a tone of authority when Same said, "Yeah, that's it."

Embry couldn't stand it "So we're just gonna ignore the possible implications of what that could mean? And the potential danger it puts Remy in?"

"No," Sam replied, tone grave, "we're gonna keep an eye out for it."

"I'm sorry but you know that's bullshit," Embry snapped. "You have me go on extra patrols and drop out of school for a month so we can protect Bella fucking Swan. I mean, we have to turn our whole lives upside down for a girl who's not from our tribe and who isn't anyone's imprint. But when Remy, my imprint, whose a member of our tribe and has lived here her whole goddamn life is threatened, the best I get is a fucking we'll look out for it?"

"Bella Swan is facing a credible threat that we know is real."

"What are you implying here?"

And Embry knew what his alpha meant without him saying anything. But he wanted him to say it. He wanted Sam to say it so there was no denying that even he thought Remy and her safety was just a joke. That he thought Remy was just a drunk. "Look, there's always been problems with the Cree family. I had to scare her brother off for selling harsher things than weed more than once. And it's not a very big secret that Remy likes to drink. I mean no disrespect when I say this Embry, but Remy isn't a very credible source for this type of information when you know she was at least drinking."

"Her reputation precedes her."

The cockiness in Jared's tone sent trembles throughout Embry's entire body. "You shut your fucking mouth about her," Embry seethed at the same time Sam commanded, "Jared, stay out of it." The boy smirked before turning on his heel and walking back into the house.

Embry snapped his attention back at Sam. "So what are you gonna say when you're wrong, and Remy gets hurt because you had me stationed outside of Bella fucking Swan's house all night, doing nothing and waiting for a threat that won't show up?" Embry was past a certain point now. It didn't matter that Sam could pull rank because the only thing that outranked his alpha was his imprint.

"It's not gonna come to that," Sam assured, voice softer than before, and Embry wondered if Sam would be this calm, cool and collected if Emily was the point of discussion instead. "She'll be protected, you know that." But it wasn't enough for Embry, the first waves of rage were still running through him. "Listen, just calm down, alright? Remy's gonna be fine. Look, I'll get someone else to do your patrols tonight. You can watch over her."

"Yeah," Embry replied, "alright."

He left Sam's house, feeling defeated, and wondered if this was how Remy felt every time she was spoken to.

* * *

By the time Embry got home, his mother's eyes were bloodshot. She sat the kitchen table with her bony and skinny hands pressed hard against her face, kneading her knuckles deep into her eyes. She didn't flinch when the door shut behind Embry, and had no reaction to the wood that creaked under his feet. "Hey Mom," he said, voice soft and tired.

"Is there even a point?" she asked, voice shaking like she had been crying long before her son stepped through the door. She pulled her hands away and looked at Embry, and there was something about the unfiltered despair in her eyes that was so striking it made him want to break something. "Be honest with me, is there even a point in trying to ground you anymore?"

"I guess not."

His mother let out a shaky breath, leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "You gonna tell me were you were, at least?"

"I was with a friend. She needed help," he defended weakly, and he knew that at a certain point, nothing he said to his mother would even matter anymore. She was always going to look at him as something defiant, determined to disregard and hurt her. Embry used to beg Sam to let him tell her, swearing it would be so much easier, for his family and for the pack. But Sam was so set in his ways that his mother was left in the dark.

Her mother scoffed. "I think I know the type of help she would need at one in the goddamn morning."

"Mom," he said, voice mixed with desperation and exhaustion, "it's not anything like that. Come one, you know me."

"Do I?" she snapped back, voice so cutting Embry took a step back. And she was right; his mother didn't know him anymore. There was nothing about his life she could begin to understand. So instead of arguing with her on that front, he dropped his shoulders and shuffled over to his room, closing the door gently behind him.

His bed was small but warm and the blankets were inviting. His body temperature was plenty to keep him warm but there was something about being swaddled up in the sheets that made him feel comfortable. He hadn't been getting much sleep; all of his time was either dedicated to finding that red-headed blooded sucker, or settled in a pile of leaves in the woods near Remy's house, ears perked in case there were any threats. He liked his bed, and though he wasn't about to complain about last night's sleeping conditions, it was a lot more comfortable than a plastic chair with wheels. And if he was going to spend all night by that pile of leaves again, he needed a good amount of rest.

Embry let his thoughts wander before his mind drifted off to sleep, landing on the promise he made Remy. And he realized how stupid of a promise it was. He couldn't even remember what Briah Cree looked like; it had been over a year since he went missing, and it's not like they were close back when he was alive. When he thought of the older Cree sibling, he thought of the way he would walk down the halls. He had this stride; his limbs were long and skinny and he swung them around with such confidence. He remembered people being afraid of Briah, sometimes even more so than they were of Remy.

There was just something about them, about the whole family.

Embry spent a lot of time listening to Quil describe the Cree's (only course, after Embry begged for every detail about them). Remy's mom was straight like a ruler, desperately clinging onto any structural sense of normalcy. She would burn down her own house just to cook for one dinner party. And her dad wasn't any better, retreating into his work and fishing trips and investing in everything but his kids. And Remy was too spaced out to notice that things might be wrong. Quil said when things were good, they were good. But they all had the capability to rip each other apart.

There was this overwhelming desire Embry felt just to hold Remy, and to tell her things would be okay. Even though he technically did, earlier in the day when he made the promise that he would help her find her brother. Fuck.

He just had to remember what he looked like first.

Embry drifted off into a dreamless, black sleep. The sun that lit his room dipped behind the horizon while he slept, and his room was still, save the sound of his soft snores. It was a peaceful sleep, the kind that he hadn't gotten in a long time, and it was interrupted by the shrill ringing of his phone. He groaned, eyes still closed while he reached around his bed until he found it in his pocket. "Hello?" he answered with a yawn.

"Hey, Embry."

The sound of Remy's voice made him shoot up out of bed. "Remy, hi. What are you, um, what's up?" he stumbled, and mentally kicked himself. He did that a lot when he was around Remy. She was really good at making him act like an idiot.

There was a brief silence. "Were you asleep?"

"No," he said quickly, too quickly, "no I woke up a while ago," he lied.

He was sitting on the edge of his bed, muscles tense as he waited for Remy's next words. It was like this every time they spoke; he was always waiting for her next words, rushing through his own just so he could hear her voice again that much quicker. It was nice, her voice. Low and raspy and it crackled when she laughed. "Alright," she said, voice trailing, and he bit his lip waiting for her next words. "I, um, I'm sorry for calling, it's just like," she hesitated again, "this was weird, I'm sorry."

"No, no, no, no, no," Embry blurred the words together and didn't even care if he sounded desperate, "it's not weird at all."

"Right, I just," he could hear her blow air out of her cheeks, "I just saw something pretty fucked up, and I dunno, I just needed to talk to someone about it. Thought you might be okay with that." Her words grew quieter as she spoke, and Embry almost couldn't hear it over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

He stood, stretching out his legs and looking out his window. "Yeah, of course I'm okay with that," Embry asserted, "I already told you can tell me anything, remember?"

"Right so, um, me and Bobby went up to Port Angeles to see a movie." Embry didn't like the idea of Bobby and Remy hanging out together; it was a combination of the way Bobby treated people and this weird gut feeling he got whenever Remy said her name, "and, um, after the movie, we were walking back to the car, and there was a dead body on a sidewalk."

Embry felt his heart sink deep into his gut. "Holy shit, Remy."

"And it was just so fucked up cause like, I could just see their hand and I'd never seen someone look so pale before," she said, rushing past his response, "and Bobby tried to play it off but I just, like I can't stop thinking about it."

"Well seeing a body is a pretty fucked up thing. The first time you see something like that, that's a hard thing to get out of your head," he said, and realized it might not be the most comforting thing to say in that moment, "I mean, it makes sense that you keep thinking about it. And, y'know, once people die, the paleness is just a normal thing. They lose color. It's still a hard thing to see, but it's not..." it was so difficult for him to find the words to say to her, "it's not unusual."

She was quiet again for a moment. "Have you ever, y'know, seen one?"

Images of a hard and cracked corpse under flames played in his head. "Yeah, I have."

Embry counted to three before she responded again. "Do you wanna come over tomorrow? I mean, if you really meant what you said about Bear. Cause I have a few working theories, and-"

"Yes! I mean, yeah, I'll come by tomorrow. Of course I meant it, yeah."

Remy chuckled a little. "Yeah, alright. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye, then."

"Bye," Embry said, long after she hung up.

* * *

Try as he may, Embry Call could not even begin to understand Remy Cree.

He saw her room just a day ago. And it was neat enough, and kind of weird, covered with posters of bands Embry had never heard of with words in some eastern European language and anatomical diagrams of Bigfoot. There were dead and dried out plants Embry couldn't name and about six cacti, and most alarmingly, several small and shiny knives. That was the day before, and in the short time he was gone, the walls were now covered with lined paper, with Remy's straight and skinny handwriting all over it. There were a few more pictures of Briah and her, from varying ages, all over her desk, and along with crumbled up printed out photos of strange and creepy looking pictures.

And Remy was in the middle of it, sitting on her chair with a thick pair of reading glasses and stray hairs flying all over the place. "When did you have time to do all of this?" he asked, moving to sit on the edge of her bed.

"I didn't sleep last night," she replied, tapping her fingers on knee. "I would've gotten more done but I had work this morning."

Embry tried briefly to imagine Remy working in customer service, especially at someplace as bright as a bakery, but couldn't even begin to picture it. "So, what is all of this?"

Remy chewed the inside of her cheek. She did that a lot, whenever he said something that made her pause. It was easy to notice the stark concave in her face. "I don't want you to think that I'm like, insane or anything," she said after a moment, "but I know my brother, and unless something weird happened to him, he wouldn't be wandering around the woods like that. And he wouldn't look so, put together. So I've been, um, addressing some alternate theories."

He was well aware of the alternate theories Remy liked to explore. He hadn't forgotten all the time and effort she had put into trying to figure out what was going on with him and the pack. And she got pretty damn close, borrowing from a Canadian tribe and labeling them worshipers of a breed of man-dogs. It was almost funny, reading through her journal and seeing all the cryptids she thought he was. The truth was right under her nose, too. It was almost funny, before he started feeling like shit for invading her privacy. "Like what?" he questioned.

"So I'm ignoring the idea that my brother might have been like, kidnapped by some hermit with a log cabin into the woods and tortured into submission, and I've been doing some research on human guises." Embry raised an eyebrow. "But before I explain, you need to swear on your goddamn life you won't try to padlock me to a safe room or something."

Embry put his hand over his chest. "Scout's honor," he said with a smile, because he knew that there was almost nothing Remy could theorize that would be more outrageous than his own reality.

She stared at him, right in his eyes in a way that made him sweat. Her eyes were so dark and wide and there was something about them that was so intimidating. And even though Remy had cute freckles covering her face and a sweet, heart-shaped face, it was her eyes that were the most intense part of her. "Alright," she said, like she always did, and started chewing on her cheek again, biting on it between her words. "A human guise is like, something inhuman pretending to be human. It can be like, a costume, or it can be like a form of possession," she paused, looking up at Embry to make sure that he was still following, "and if something happened to Bear, maybe he was feeling weak, and something took advantage of that."

And Embry was fucking overjoyed. He smiled like a dumbass, because he knew that if Remy was open to the idea of possession, maybe shapeshifting wouldn't be a concept she had too hard of a time grasping onto. "You think your brother was possessed?"

But Remy narrowed her eyes and pulled back her lip in almost a snarl. "If you're just gonna make fun of me then you can get the fuck out of my house."

"No! No, I'm not making fun of you," he sighed, and took a break to think. And in that moment, he made a decision. A bad one, but the best one he could think of in that moment. He was going to lie to Remy. "It's just that like," he stumbled, "I've always believed in this kind of thing, you know? Like, everything that happens on this reservation is weird, and I always thought there had to be some explanation for it. I just, I guess I didn't think you would too."

He felt like shit the second the words came out of his mouth. Because they weren't his words. They were Remy's. She had written something almost identical in her journal, her private journal, that he had read. And he was taking her words and using them to lie and for what? So she would trust him? So she wouldn't make him leave?

Remy eyed him skeptically, leaning back against her chair and still chewing on her goddamn cheek. When she looked at him, he felt like she was staring straight through him, through all of his bullshit. Embry thought be shaking. Not from rage, like he normally would, but nerves. He thought he fucked it up. Embry was so goddamn positive he fucked it up. "Okay," she said after an excruciatingly long time.

"Okay," he chirped, immediately feeling the relief.

"Anyways if you wanna help me like you said you would, you better start pulling your weight."

Embry chuckled. He wished she knew how valuable his skill set was, that if he could just get one whiff of Briah's scent, he wouldn't need that much time to track him down. "You worry about the theories, I'll be out there looking for him." Embry patted his chest in a playful show of dominance. "No one knows these woods better than me."

This earned a little half smile from Remy. "Yeah, sure thing bud." But her smile dropped and she looked out her window. "Be honest with me for a second, do you think he's actually alive out there?"

"Yeah," Embry assured her gently, "I really think he is."

It wasn't technically a lie, and it earned him a warm little glance from Remy. This was the closest he'd ever felt to her, and he didn't want to let it go.

* * *


	12. chapter twelve: the cafeteria

I cupped my cheek and rested my elbow on the kitchen counter, staring at my father while he pretended not to notice me. He was humming, loudly and off-key, while his fried eggs popped in the frying pan. I could be patient, though, and I tapped the counter to the beat of his favorite Dead Kennedy's song. I loved my father in different ways than I loved my mother, because he was simple. He was easy to talk to, and didn't care about much at all. My mother and I could be biting chunks out of each other, and my father's solution would be to wait it out, to let us tire each other out. He let me get away with a lot.

He danced a little to his own humming, while he turned and slid his egg onto a plate full of toast. In this moment, he glanced up at me with a bemused smirk. "Oh, Remy, didn't see you there," he said in a light little tone, "what could you possibly want on the Monday morning after you stopped being grounded?" I extended my arm out in front of him, with my palm wide open, and gave him my biggest and purest smile. "Eh, not so fast," he chirped, "you have to apologize to your mother first."

"What? That's not the deal," I shot back, straightening my posture. "You said I would get my car back Monday morning. It's Monday morning, so now I get my car back," I argued, face feeling hot.

But my dad just shook his head. "Well, Remy, now I'm saying that I'll let you keep using my car to drive to school and work if you apologize to your mother first. You said some really nasty things to her, and you're not gonna get to drive around until you own up to it."

My arms were shaking. "I didn't say anything that wasn't true."

And my dad gave me this look, this stupid look with big, disappointed eyes and down-turned features and I wondered what my mother said to him to make him start actually acting like a father. "Remy, your mom's been going through a rough time lately, and you're not giving her enough credit. She's trying her best, and the constant push-back from you isn't helping. You said what you said to hurt her, and that's why you need to apologize."

I scoffed. "What so, mom can barge into my room banging pots and pans and make wild accusations about me and I'm just supposed to roll over and let her do and say whatever she wants? I didn't even do anything wrong."

He sighed, and rested on the counter to match his eye level to mine. "Honestly, Remy, at this point I don't even care if you're telling the truth or not. I care about the way you reacted. The rage you have," he shook his head, "I let it go unchecked with Briah, but I'm not gonna let it go unchecked with you. So until you apologize to your mother, you're not grounded, but you don't have a car."

And I felt it tight in my muscles, that unchecked rage, and it was screaming to get out. For me to punch a wall, scream at my dad, or throw something until it broke. I stared up at my father with shaking fists. "Why don't you ever defend me against her? Why do I have to apologize to her, but she can scream at me until her voice is raw and that's totally fine? Like, I'm your kid, you're supposed to defend me."

My dad gave me a sad look. "I'll talk to your mom. Okay? Just apologize, please, so we can keep being a family."

"I already told Quil he didn't have to give me a ride today," I protested, throat feeling tight. But there was a loud honk from outside and I was forced to recognize defeat. My dad gave me a sad smile, and dove into his eggs.

The first thing I did when I jumped into the passenger seat of Quil's truck was turn the volume on the radio all the way up, so loud that it made my ears pound. He gave me a look, eyes drawn together and nose scrunched, still parked in my driveway, and went to turn the volume down again. But my hand was quicker than his and I covered the volume control and looked out the window. There was a stillness for a moment while my eyes focused on the clumps of dirt before the truck started moving again. I didn't look at Quil the whole ride there.

There was this tenseness in my joints and my jaw and my muscles and I felt like if I moved I would rip the handle off of the door. I was wishing that if my dad needed to think one of his kids committed suicide to start acting like a dad then he shouldn't have had kids in the first place. I was thinking about how he went seventeen years without ever caring about the words that came out of my mouth and how it was so fucking stupid that he was gonna start pretending to love his wife after keeping me up late nights with his incessant screaming about how much he couldn't stand her.

The parking lot was crowded by the time we pulled in, and I leaned forward in my seat, eyes straining to look for Quil's normal parking spot. "He's not here," Quil said in a gentle tone, "Embry's running late today. Won't be in for another hour."

"Good," I said in a gruff voice, unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door before Quil even fully stopped his truck, slamming the door behind me. I was gonna get a fucking earful for that.

Bobby Evans was the only person I could even imagine being around, because the combination of her constantly running mouth and general lack of interest in anything I had to say made her the perfect companion. And she was sitting there, perfect and pampered with her hair curled and framing her face, lips shiny and lashes thick. But then I imagined the morning Bobby had. There was no way she got so perfect looking while screaming at her father and I bet her mom made her a stack of pancakes before refilling her bank account and then the idea of interacting with Bobby seemed far worse.

I sat down next to her wordlessly, and she dove into it before I got reel in my thoughts. "Hey," she said to get the greetings out of the way, "so my parents are going out of town next weekend again, so I was thinking of having a couple people over. Nothing like last time, though, totally chill, and people could sleep in my basement. There's this girl Jessica from Forks who just got dumped for like, the fifth time by some Wonderbread looking guy, and I think she may be a little interested. I want you to meet her, cause like, I need your approval."

"Uh-huh," I mumbled, arms crossed and not looking her way.

"Do you wanna come over tonight? I need some help with my history paper on Greece, and I'll help you figure out polynomials in exchange."

"Sure."

"Good. Maybe by then you'll be in a better mood. You're boring when you're grumpy," Bobby said in a clipped tone.

I raised my eyebrow at her. "Sorry my basic human functions are an inconvenience for you. I'll try to be less of a person next time."

But Bobby just rolled her eyes. "God, you're so fucking cheesy. Go write some poetry and talk to me when you're not oozing middle school angst, alright?"

Despite myself, I chuckled, and let the grin linger on my face. I was starting to like her.

* * *

Everyone was getting too fucking chummy with me.

My lunch period used to be an exclusive time of self-pitying and researching dead-end theories, and I liked it that way. It was a full half hour of isolation and mindless white noise, something that was getting really hard to find. And even though everything I did during my lunch period essentially amounted up to nothing, it was the most valuable nothing I could be doing. I was sitting there, flipping through a book on paganism, trying to find something about possession (but it was just pages on pages about different kinds of herbs) really enjoying the lack of company. Because even though it was hours later and the original anger was faded, I was still thinking about what my dad said about Bear. It made my skin crawl.

It was Quil who plopped down next to me first, and I minded his presence the least. He was chewing on something loudly and had a large tray of food in front of him. "How ya feelin' champ?" he asked me while he swallowed.

"Fine," I replied, not looking up from my book.

Quil was content to eat in silence, and if it weren't for the loud and wet chewing noises, I almost wouldn't have minded. But it was only a few more moments of uncomfortable silence before Embry Call took the other seat next to me.

Embry Call was a liar and a bastard, and he thought I was stupid enough to not recognize my own goddamn sentence. And even though he looked me in the eye and lied, I still had this weird inclination to trust he was doing it for a good reason, and even if he was a bastard, he was a bastard that promised to help me find my brother. He may have lied about the reason, but he believed me when I told him about Bear, when I had a feeling no one else would. Plus, I wasn't exactly surprised at the realization it was him who was writing notes in my journal. Who else would tell me to stay inside at night other than the kid who cleaned out my puke bucket when it got full in the middle of the night? I was so mixed on him it made me dizzy. He sat down next to me with a big stupid smile, and said, "Hey, Remy."

I nodded in response, not wanting to encourage any further discussion. But like always, he ignored my not-so-subtle little hints. "Do you ever eat?" he asked, gesturing towards my lunch of an untouched apple.

Wordlessly, I put my book down and picked up my apple. I looked Embry in the eyes when I bit into it, and while the large chunk was still in my mouth, I said, "Yes."

The silence that followed only lasted about three seconds before Seth Clearwater, with his young face and high-pitched voice, sat down next to Quil. "I'm so screwed," he complained loudly, "I forgot about my world history paper that was due today and now I'm totally gonna fail. I don't know anything about Rome! Who knows anything about Rome?" Seth momentarily stopped his ranting when he looked over at me and grinned, all worry suddenly disappearing from his face. "Hi!" he chirped, "I'm Seth Clearwater!"

"Okay," I replied, uninterested, and his face fell.

"Remy," Quil snapped, "don't be mean to Seth, he's like a baby," he said, reaching over and pinching Seth's cheek. Seth swatted his hand away with a laugh, and I had a hard time thinking that Seth, who was at least a foot taller than me, could be perceived as a baby, even if his face was that young.

"If I'm not mean to him he might keep talking to me," I said, mostly to myself, but I knew they would all hear it.

There was another brief moment of silence before Embry said, "Remy's really good at history. I was in her class freshman year and she got the best grades out of everyone. She could probably help you with your essay."

Seth perked up. "Really? You'd do that?"

I looked up at Seth for a moment. "No," I said simply, irritation growing.

Quil turned to look at me. "Remy, has anyone ever told you that you have an extraordinary way with people?"

And in the time I rolled my eyes, Jacob Black took a seat next to Embry and complained louder than Seth did. "I'm so fucking sick of Bella calling me. Like, she literally won't stop calling me and I don't know why! It's not like I'm the one who left her. She made her choice, and she should have to live with it."

I felt like I wasn't the only one at the table who wasn't interested in hearing this, because there was a general slacking of posture and a change in atmosphere with his words. "We get it, dude," Embry said, not looking over his friend.

Jacob stared at me, looking straight into my eyes. "Remy, you're a girl. Can I get your opinion on this?"

This statement earned chuckles from both Embry and Quil, who lowered in their seats and shared a look with each other. I was in absolute disbelief. I stared blankly back at Jacob. "Have we ever spoken? Like, even once before?"

"Don't mind Jacob," Embry said, leaning in towards me while I kept my back stiff and straight, "he doesn't have to brain function to think of anything other than Bella right now."

I didn't like that they were talking to me about things I didn't know or care about like I was supposed to know or care about them. The most I knew about this Bella girl was that Quil thought she was hot and she dumped Jacob, and that was far more than I cared to know. "Look's who fucking talking?" Jacob quipped back, and I couldn't tell if he was joking or not.

"Watch it," Embry said with wide eyes, and I picked my book back up and decided to pretend that they weren't there.

I was reading about the use of rosemary in witchcraft and thought about how stupid it was for my mother to name me after an herb while the boys around me grew rowdier. They were hard to ignore, and I could feel the looks Embry kept shooting my way. There was so much going on in the background I couldn't focus on the text and instead started to let my mind wander, imagining the witches in Macbeth writing this book. And this thought was so intriguing to me that I almost didn't notice when the boys around me feel silent.

I looked over at Embry first, who was nervously looking between me and the other end of the table. I followed his gaze to see her standing straight with watery eyes at the edge of our table. Her hands were shaking and Jared stood a few inches behind her, hand on her shoulder. And all of the tenseness in my body returned. I didn't want to know what she wanted and I didn't want to hear her voice and I thought that if I did I might lose it.

I wasn't the only one feeling the tenseness. Quil and Embry both scooted closer to me in their chairs, shoulders stiffened. For a moment, there was nothing, just Kim and I, staring each other down, while everyone around us shot their eyes all over the scene, waiting for one of us to make the first move.

Her mouth opened, and a tear fell down her cheek, and before her voice could escape, I cut her off. "Kim," I spoke, voice low and strong, "I would think really carefully about whether or not what you're gonna say is worth it, because I'm a person of my word, and I would hate to get your blood on your boyfriend's shirt."

Kim's face was puffed up and there was makeup on her cheeks and she held her breath so tight I could see it piling up in her apple cheeks. Her shoulders were shaking and then it was like it all built up and she let out her breath and her sobs and all the tears out at once before turning on her heel and running towards the door. Jared made a point to shake his head at me before following her. I didn't care. I just didn't want to hear her voice.

Seth was the first to break the silence with softened, "Jesus Christ," and that was the final straw for me.

"Well," I said standing and gathering my stuff, "it was super fun to have my personal space and alone time intruded on, but I'm gonna go now. Really, super great guys." Embry stood next to me and grabbed my upper arm, and I yanked it away from him. "Don't touch me," I snarled, and walked away from that stupid little table.

I wasn't surprised when he followed me but I didn't turn around when he said my name. I hated public confrontation and I was hyper aware of all of the eyes that were following me out the door while Embry chased after me. There was this stark image of Briah with a bloodied nose in the middle of the cafeteria with arms opened up and his booming voice in my eyes while I pushed the door opened and stormed out. I didn't like an audience he like he did.

Embry's voice was echoing down the halls while I headed towards the front entrance. He caught up with me easily, stepping in front of me and blocking my path. He looked down at me with those same disappointed eyes Quil gave me. "Remy, what the hell was that?"

"It was none of your business," I said, trying to walk past him but he matched my step.

"Do you really have to resort to violence in everything you do? What if she was going to apologize, Remy?" I hated the sincerity in his voice and I wished I could pretend that Embry really didn't care about this, but I knew from his voice and his posture and his eyes that he really, really did.

"Then it would've been none of your business."

Embry sighed. "Remy, I want it to be my business, okay? Why can't you see that I care about you? That I want to be your friend and see you happy?"

My voice was quiet when I spoke again because I needed to maintain control over myself, because I felt like I was the last thing I could control. "Jesus, Embry, you can't just walk into my life out of nowhere and start demanding that I act differently and say it's because you care about me. You don't care about me because you don't know me. We've lived on the same reservation for seventeen years and you hadn't said one word to me the entire time, not even when Bear went missing. And now you wanna say you care about me?"

"Remy," he said in that stupid gentle voice with his stupid gentle eyes and I wanted to scream. I couldn't stand Embry Call.

"And I think you might have some weird, preconceived idea of what you want me to be like and have like, latched onto that or something, but that's not real and that's not me, so please stop acting like you know me," I finished, feeling breathless.

Embry shook his head. "I feel like I'm taking one step forward and fifty-steps back," he mumbled, and I didn't know if he was saying it to me or to himself but it didn't make any sense to me and I hated how confused he made me.

"Well can you take a step to the left and get out of my way?" I asked, feeling tired.

"Can you just," he started, but trailed off and bit his lip, looking around the halls, "can you just give me another chance? We can be friends, Remy. And I wanna know you, I really do, and-"

"Jesus Christ," I interrupted. I placed a hand on Embry's shoulder and shoved him out of the way. He was stiff and heavy and I knew that I probably couldn't knock him out of my way unless he let me. But he did. He stumbled back and out of my way and I walked away without looking back at him.

* * *

Bobby's face was so close to mine I could feel her breath on my nose. "This is a really, really bad idea," she said, legs tangled up in her blankets.

I shifted my weight around on her bed and grinned. "Yeah, but I honestly think that makes it even better."

She rolled her eyes and leaned into me, needle pressed against the side of my nose. Her hand was gently trembling, despite the confidence in her voice. "I wish Embry Call and my good friend Kimmy would leave you alone so you'd stop dragging me into your destructive decisions. When did you even decide to do this?"

"Oh my god, just do it already," I urged, feeling the nerves in my veins. It was going to fade soon if she didn't get on with it.

Bobby inhaled sharply. "Alright, one, two," she counted, and then plunged in the needle right into the side of my nose. The pain made was sharp and made my eyes water and my nose scrunch up. "Fuck," Bobby said airily, "I think I'm gonna faint."

"Before you do that can you at least put the hoop in?" I said, wiggling around different parts of my face, trying to distract from the pinching in my nose.

"Right," she said, shaking her head and reaching around the bed for the small little hoop we had prepared. "I can't believe you talked me into this," she complained while she replaced the needle with the hoop, "you haven't even helped me with my essay yet."

I rolled my eyes. "It's only like, nine, we can still do your stupid essay."

Bobby pulled her hands away from my face and leaned back. "Damn, despite the blood I'd say it looks pretty good. I should've charged."

I rolled off of Bobby's bed and stood in front of her vanity, staring at my reflection in her oversized and crystal clear mirror, examining the details of my face. The silver little hoop looked natural hooked around my nostril, and I would say the blood that dripped from the tiny little hole made it look even better. I felt good about the way I looked, even with the freckles and buggy eyes. "You're right you should've charged me. I look great."

"Alright, calm down, Remy. I don't think this friendship could withstand anymore ego," she said with a little laugh. "Now come help me with my fucking essay."

Bobby was good at a lot of things; film criticism, makeup, finding another person's weaknesses and exploiting it, but she was really fucking bad at writing history essays. It was all I could do not to laugh at the language she used. Her face was tight and scrunched up as I read through it. "Is it really that bad?" she asked sheepishly.

"I'm just really struggling to understand how someone with such a strong grasp on language in literally any other subject could seriously write out the sentence, Socrates was a really thoughtful guy."

She picked up one of her little throw pillows and tossed it in my laughing face. "Shut up," she pouted, 'it's harder than it looks."

My laughter was interrupted by the loud and cutting sound of a howl. It was a familiar sound, one that I had heard near my home on more than one occasion, but Bobby's eyes widened. "That sounded really close," she said, scrambling towards her window. I followed, dropping her essay on the bed.

We had popped out heads out the window just in time to see the tail of a grey wolf weaving through the trees. Bobby was frantic, voice hitched while she yapped about never seeing a wolf that big but I kept still while my blood went cold because I had seen a wolf that big before and I had a strange feeling that it had followed me up to Bobby's house, like it had done once before.

I felt weak, and sat down back down on Bobby's bed while she blabbered and thought briefly for a moment that that might be Bear.

* * *


	13. chapter thirteen: the punching bag

I liked working out when the sun was low in the sky and there was a low fog that hung over the reservation and the humidity mixed with my sweat. Bear hung up this old makeshift punching bag that was covered in holes with suspicious material spilling out of it. He threw it up on a low hanging branch on the side of our house and gave me this huge, proud grin and then, about a week later, disappeared into the woods.

With droplets of sweat on either side of my forehead, I threw punch after punch, arms shaking and muscles aching. There was nothing that felt better than the burning in my lungs and the taste of blood in the back of my throat. I didn't know how long I had been out there but was a heaviness in my limbs that had me thinking it was longer than intended. Feeling tired came before feeling sore, and feeling sore came before feeling strong. And lately, I had been feeling pretty fucking weak.

I tried not to look at the trees. I couldn't see them or think of them without seeing Bear and the way he stood at the edge of the trees and ran from me made me feel like there was a hole in my chest. But as I was standing there, throwing punch after punch while the sun kept dipping, I felt like there was something behind me. I could feel it in my spine, my back involuntarily arching every time I felt like there was something close. I didn't turn around to check for two reasons: Bear might have been there, and Bear might not have been there. And I didn't know what to do in either one of those situations.

The bag swung slightly back and forth with each hit, chains creaking and groaning against the branch. I wanted to hit it so hard that the branch would snap, and the punching bag would fall to the ground, finally defeated.

Bear dragged this thing out of the trunk of the car, heaving it through our dirt driveway and onto the grass. And it took him twenty minutes to throw it up on this stupid branch and I had spent every moment since then trying my hardest to knock it down. I missed him. I missed Briah so fucking much. I threw a punch. He was out there in the woods. I threw another punch. My back arched in. I threw another punch by my fist stayed connected and I collapsed, turning to lean my back against the bag and sliding down to the ground. The grass was cool on the back of my thighs and my shoulders were rising and falling.

There was nothing in the woods. I was more disappointed than I was relieved.

I felt sick. It was that compression in my chest that made it harder to breathe. It felt like there was something I needed so desperately that was just out of my grasp, brushing and sparking at my fingertips but never tight in my palm. It hurt, like the pieces of my chest were crumbling away.

I kept thinking about Bear. Not in the way I knew him, with a warm laugh and strong hugs and his protective arm over my shoulder, but in the way other people saw him. With a snarling top lip and a bloody lip and the type of smirk that makes your gut drop.

And I kept thinking about that day, the day I had pushed back into my subconscious that came back and hit me in so hard in the gut it almost knocked me off my feet. One month and one day before he went missing, he yelled. Yelled at the top of his lungs in the middle of the cafeteria while I sat in the corner, alone, watching with wide eyes. I had never heard his voice like that. It was a voice that scared off the authority figures while people tried to figure out if they should call the cops. And then he started swinging. Wide and swinging punches that ripped open the skin on his knuckles. I don't remember who he was fighting but they got one good shot at his nose. And Bear smiled while the blood dripped down his lip.

And I just stared, fingers knotted and jaw locked while a man in a blue uniform put heavy cuffs around my brother's wrist.

I asked him why he did it: why he started a fight right there for everyone to see, why he was so brutal, why he licked his blood off his lips. And he said to me, "No one's ever gonna fuck with me again, Remy. And no one's ever gonna fuck with you, either."

"Remy." I turned my head at the sound of my father's voice. He was leaning against the corner of the house, long and skinny face just like my brother's. "Dinner's ready."

I stared. "I'm not hungry."

My dad made a tight little line with his lips and looked off into the woods. I watched his shoulders. "Alright," he said after a moment, and went back into the house to be with his beloved little wife. His wife and his house and her cooking but not his daughter and definitely not his son.

With a heavy breath, I stood, and started slamming my fists into the punching bag once more.

* * *

"Do you think Lucos is dead or just hungover?" I asked Bobby as our biology teacher lay head down on his desk, unflinching.

"Dead, hopefully. But more importantly, I think I've exhausted the dating pool in this area," Bobby said, tossing her phone down on the desk. "The fact that I've managed to find as many girlfriends and dates that I did is a miracle. But now the miracle's run out. Remy," she looked at me with grave eyes, "we have to move. How do you feel about New York?"

Bobby looked wrong today. There was something different about her eyes, they were heavy and sagging and free on any makeup, and her skin was blotchy. And instead of one of her cute little outfits she was dressed like me, with a big and faded hoodie and old thrifted jeans. "Why don't you try being single for a while and then cycle back to the first one?" I suggested, tapping my pencil on our unfinished biology worksheet.

She pursed her lips. Those weren't glossy today, either. "Maybe. How long are people normally single for?" she asked in a bouncy little tone and stared off into the corner of the room.

I snorted. "In between relationships? I don't know, probably like three or four months. Maybe just a couple of weeks, depending on how long the relationship lasts." I wished that Bobby would sort out her relationship problems before she came into bio, or least, save them for after, because this was the only class period we had to finish this stupid assignment and I had no idea what any of it meant. And even if I wanted to focus on the life cycle of cells, my head was too clouded with crying faces and harsh words.

But she just groaned and dropped her forehead against the desk. "Remy this is the longest I've been single and I'm so bored." She shifted her head and looked at me with a big pout. "I don't know how you unattractive people do it."

I shrugged. "I was actually born beautiful and worked really hard to get ugly so people would leave me alone. It's a lot easier than running through my entire dating pool in less than two years."

Bobby reached over and flicked my arm before straightening up. "Okay, relax, you're not that ugly. If I'm like Cinderella, you're like, Cinderella's third step-sister. Like, you're fine looking and your personality's a little rough but all around you'd probably be a pretty good lay."

"I'm sorry weren't we talking about why you were single?"

"Yeah, but the conversation changed. That's how conversations work. They flow," she explained slowly, stretching out her words. "So, have you ever dated anyone before?"

I snorted. "No."

"Why not?"

"I never cared to. Emotionally intimacy was never my thing. Plus I think that even if someone was interested in me they were too afraid of my brother to ever even look in my direction," I swallowed a little lump in my throat, "and now they're probably too afraid of me."

Bobby scoffed. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Because you've never had to be."

"Or maybe you're not as scary as you think you are." I raised an eyebrow at her, and she gave me a little eye roll. "Whatever. We gotta get you some dick or something though. Being friends with a virgin might hurt my reputation."

And I laughed. "Bobby, I'm not a virgin."

This statement made her eyes pop out of her head and she leaned forward close to me and whispered, "What? You tell me what happened right the fuck now."

I shifted around in my seat and retracted my hands back into the sleeves of my hoodie. "I dunno. It was once, and he was an asshole."

"Tell me."

I let out a heavy groan. "Bear had this group of older friends and after his funeral I was hanging out with a couple of them. There was this one guy and, I dunno he was kind of hot, I guess. We got really drunk and we fucked that night and I didn't give him my number and then he called me a bitch and I never saw him again. I honestly don't even remember his name, and his dick was kind of-"

And in the middle of my sentence, there was a loud screeching, the sound of metal against a linoleum floor. I flinched at the sound, and before I could source it, Embry stormed past my desk with tense shoulders and set eyes. He didn't spare a glance my way, just grabbed the door with white knuckles and slammed it shut behind him.

Lucos jumped out the sounds, raising his head for the first time that period and shouting, "Get back to work, guys!" before dropping his head once more.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Bobby whispered with a sharp exhale. "What the fuck is his problem?" And then her eyes widened and she leaned in close. "Do you think he was listening?"

My eyes fixated on the door. "I dunno," I replied, voice hushed. My heart was pounding in my throat and that weird and painful hole in my chest was growing.

"Dude, you mark my fucking words. One day your mom's gonna find you dead in your bed with your eyelids cut out and it's gonna be him I swear to fucking god."

"He's harmless," I shot back.

Bobby gaped. "Remy, he is psychotic."

"Can you just help me with my fucking worksheet?"

Bobby flinched at my words. And she had this stupid little pout on her face. Not one of those cute girl pouts she did when she wanted something, it was the genuine, grumpy pout of a child who was just scolded. She helped me with my work, but did so in a passive aggressive way. Actually less so passive and more aggressive, calling me stupid at least twice. I didn't really mind or take any offense to it. Bobby put up with my moody and brooding act enough for me to tolerate her acting like a brat.

And, unlike everyone else I knew, Bobby couldn't stay mad at me. We snapped at each other often but it was swallowed and by the end of a twenty minute interval she was giggling and throwing good-natured insults my way. Getting along with Bobby felt like getting along with myself, a bubbly, prettier, and much weaker version of myself.

When the bell rang, she grabbed her bag and walked by my side out the door. "Amber called me last night," she confessed, matching my steps. "We stayed up all night arguing. That's why I look like shit right now."

"Which one was Amber again?"

"Wendy's girlfriend."

"Right, and you dated Wendy?"

People stared at the two of us. It was different than when I walked down the hall with Embry. Those looks were stares of curiosity, long and lingering. But these ones were quick and fleeting. And I knew why. People were afraid of Bobby and they were afraid of me. The combination of her harsh and direct bullying tactics and my silent violence must have severely disrupted the high school ecosystem.

"Yeah, I dated Wendy. And then when we broke up, we both went after Amber. But Amber liked Wendy more. And now Wendy's like, constantly trying to flaunt their relationship in my face, and even though Wendy kinda treats her like shit, Amber won't even..." Bobby trailed off, interrupted.

Embry Call stepped in front of us, once again using his broad shoulders to block the hallway. He was staring down at me with such an intensity I had to shift under his gaze. "Can I talk to you, please?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," I replied.

"Alone, I meant," he said, not taking his eyes off of me.

I turned towards Bobby. She glanced back and forth between Embry and I, eyes skeptical and body angled away from him. "You better still have your eyelids in twenty minutes," she said finally, before trotting off in the opposite direction.

Embry turned his eyebrows down. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, she was just being mean," I said, leaning against the wall. "So what's up?"

Embry smiled a little. It was nervous and it didn't reach his cheeks. "Um," he said, and swung his backpack around, unzipping and reaching around in there for something. After a moment, he pulled out a little Tupperware container and handed it to me. I took it in my hands, and turned it around, looking at the blackened contents inside. "Quil said you really like these almond cookies from a bakery in Seattle. So I looked up a recipe online and I stayed up all night trying to make them. They're not um, I burnt a lot of them. Turns out I'm not very good at baking. Those ones were the most salvageable."

"Thanks," I said. I had to stop moving the container around because every time I did the cookies would crumble apart a little bit more, and they were already almost all broken in half. I held it in my hands and gave Embry a forced smile. "They look...great."

"Look, Remy, I'm really sorry. You were totally right, about everything. I thought I knew who you are, but I don't. And you don't know a lot about me. But I want that to change. I just, I just feel so drawn to you. Even if you aren't what I expected and I can't really predict you, I just wanna be your friend."

I hated the way Embry talked to me, it was real and direct and unavoidable. And I couldn't match it. Even if I wanted to look Embry in the eye and talk to him in the same gentle and caring tone that he used to talk to me, it would come out wrong. It would sound sarcastic and cutting and I thought that's why I wanted to just turn around and walk away. "Um, why?" I asked, chewing on my cheek.

Embry's eyes bore into mine. "I dunno it's just, being around you feels right. Do you get what I mean?"

And when he spoke I became aware of the hole in my chest and how it felt like it was shrinking whenever he spoke to me. "No," I lied, voice steady.

I could see the frustration building on his face. It was strange on his features. "See, I'm getting to know you here. Now I know that you're purposefully difficult."

"Well, at least you know now. You know I have to get to class eventually?"

"Hang out with me Friday night," he said, voice more confident than before.

"Can't. Plans with Bobby."

"Saturday, then," he asserted, and I had to admire his gall.

The crowds around us were thinning as people rushed off to class, but Embry stood firmly in front of me, waiting for an answer. "Why don't you come over tomorrow night?" I said, and a large grin grew on his face.

"Yeah, definitely yeah," he said, but his voice was cut off by the sound of a ringing bell. I pushed off the wall and walked down the hall, away from Embry Call. "I'll see you later then?" he called after me, and I threw my hand up in a lazy wave.

* * *

It was raining, droplets fat and loud as they slammed against Quil's windshield. "Are you gonna apologize?" Quil said as he started the car and his windshield wipers squeaked against the glass.

"To who?" I asked, focused on the raindrops.

Quil hit his hands against the steering wheel. "I dunno Remy, everyone? I think you owe literally everyone an apology."

"List off the people you think I should apologize to and I'll list the reasons why I shouldn't," I half-joked.

"Oh my god," Quil said through a hollow chuckle, "Remy, you are insane. You are literally insane."

I dug my fingernails into my cuticles as he started pulling out of the parking lot. "Can we not talk about this kinda thing today? I'm kinda," I started, but never finished. The rain was so loud against the car and the radio static was low. Quil drove slowly and the mud under his wheels fought against him. I wasn't in the mood to argue with Quil. I would never be in the mood to argue with Quil. He was too much like Bear and the tone in his voice was harsh like his.

But Quil was too annoyed to stop. "Don't try to make me feel bad for you when I'm mad," he warned.

"C'mon Quil, don't be mad," I pleaded, tone light. "Look, I'll apologize, okay? I'll apologize to Seth and Jacob for being mean and Embry's coming over tomorrow night so I'll say sorry for yelling at him then. Okay? Don't be mad at me, Quil."

He gave me a look. "You're hanging out with Embry tomorrow?" I nodded, and he shook his head. "That smooth bastard," he mumbled to himself. "Listen, Remy that's all great and everything, but you should really be apologizing to Kim."

"For what? I was being nice! All I did was give her a fair warning." Quil frowned at me. "I'm serious, though. I wish everyone would just leave that situation alone. She's the one who keeps pushing it."

Quil frowned his big brother frown and sighed his big brother sigh and kept his eyes straight ahead. "That's not really gonna be an option, Remy."

"Can we just please not talk about this? I'm so exhausted of constantly having to address conflict with everyone."

"Maybe you should stop creating conflict then," Quil said, exasperated. And then he looked over at me with soft eyes. "Look, I'm sorry if I'm being harsh, but I have to listen to this crap like constantly. From everyone. And this combined with Jake's nonstop complaining over Bella? Remy, I can only take so much of this shit. And if someone would just suck it up and apologize, then this whole shit would just stop."

"For some reason, I don't think it would end at that."

"Well can you at least promise me you'll stop threatening to kick Kim's ass? And promise that you won't ever actually do it? Can't even imagine how that would end," he said the last part mostly to himself.

I put my elbow on the dashboard and extended my pinkie out towards him. "As long as you promise to stop being mad at me."

Quil looked back and forth between me and the road before latching his pinkie finger onto mine. "Fine. But I reserve the right to get mad again later."


	14. chapter fourteen: the bar

There was so much blood pooled under my tongue, but my teeth still dug into my cheek and I thought soon enough I might've gnawed a hole in my face. But I couldn't stop, and I kept having to spit out mouthfuls of blood every ten minutes because I was filled to the goddamn brim with nerves. I stood in front of the mirror on my dresser, picking at the features on my face I didn't like, and wondered why I was so nervous about seeing Embry fucking Call.

I flicked the hollows of my cheeks and pinched the bags under my eyes. I frowned at my appearance. I felt a lot better in Bobby's mirror with my nose freshly pierced. Now it was crusted up and irritated, with a couple tiny little pimples around it. I wanted to rip it off.

My speaker played low and slow songs while I fiddled with the objects on my dresser, rearranging them just so I felt like I had something other to do than sit around and wait for a boy that I did not care about. I brushed the dirt off of framed pictures of Bear and took down the empty frames that used to hold pictures of Kim and I. I watered my cacti and hoped they wouldn't drown and for good measure I pushed my cute and very normal knife collection into my underwear drawer. I only kept one in my pocket.

The sun was bright but low and I could feel the bass of whatever song was playing vibrate through me and throw off the rhythm of my heartbeat. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and why my brain was scattered up like flower petals in the wind. The nerves felt foreign to me, and I didn't know why but there was something different about tonight. It was this feeling I had, one that lingered between my bones and my flesh that something was not the same as it was before and I could not even begin to comprehend it.

I sat on the edge of my bed, tugging my hair back tight against my scalp. It was wavy and frizzy and when I lifted my hands off my head it flew around everywhere, messy and out of control. I waited there, tucking my hair behind my ear and then untucking it again whenever the anxiety built up more. I thought, I don't know when he's coming, and I'd untuck it, and then I'd think, I don't know if he is coming, and then I'd tuck it again.

I didn't feel this way the last time he was in my room, holding back my frizzy and untucked hair while I emptied the contents of my stomach. But last time he was in my room, I didn't know he read my journal and he hadn't baked me almond cookies and it was just a little less than a week ago but it felt like months. Everything inside of me was churning. I started biting my cheek again.

My palms were sweaty and I rubbed them hard against my jeans. I didn't know what I was going to say to him and I didn't know how to maintain the image of myself I had carved in his head and I had to keep asking myself why I cared and why I started to care now, when I never really had before. I really missed the version of me that was cold and indifferent to this type of thing and I didn't know where she went but it hadn't been that long since she disappeared. I looked at my phone. Six-forty-five. Seven new text messages from Bobby. The sun was about to dip behind the trees, and that was when he showed up.

Embry Call did not knock on my front door and greet my mother and father. Instead, he jumped through my open window, his feet landing steady on the floor and all of the sudden in the space where there was just nothing there was Embry. My breath hitched in my throat and my eyes widened and he gave me a tiny little sheepish smile. "Sorry," he said in a husky voice, "I probably should've knocked on the front door."

"'S okay," I said, a bit breathlessly.

Embry moved easily towards my computer chair and threw himself in it, sliding across my wooden floor and looking around the walls of my bedroom. "Your room smells like almonds, which is better than the puke, I gotta say. Were the cookies any good?"

He seemed so calm, breath even and posture relaxed and I felt so rattled next to him. He spoke so smoothly and his hands weren't shaking like mine were. I doubted my words when I spoke. "The sentiment was great. The almond flavor was kind of overpowered by how burnt they were."

"I promise they'll be better next time."

I counted to five before I spoke again, examining the space in between us and the specs of dust flying around in the sunlight. I didn't know how to talk to him. I usually didn't, unless I was mad and the words came out rapidly on their own. It wasn't like talking to a friend. There was pressure. "So," I started, "what do you wanna know?"

"Huh?"

"You said you didn't know a lot about me, but you wanted to. So, what do you want to know?" I asked.

Embry let out a breath. "A lot."

I titled my head at him. "Well what do you know about me?"

"Besides the fact that you're an Aries? Just rumors," he said, leaning back in the chair. I couldn't help but be impressed he remembered such an inconsequential detail.

My teeth found their way into my bottom lip. "Let's start with this, you tell me the rumors, and I'll tell you whether or not they're true."

There was concern laced all over his features. "Some of them, they're not all that nice. I don't wanna like-"

"Embry," I cut him off, "I do not give a shit. Just say 'em." And it was true, I didn't care. I had heard the worst things possible things that could be said about me come from my mother. The words of people I couldn't pick out of a crowd meant nothing to me.

But Embry shifted his weight around like he was nervous to speak. "Um, there's a new one going around that you and Bobby Evans are dating."

I laughed. "Not true. Bobby said I'm not her type. She likes pretty girls."

Embry mumbled something incomprehensible under his breath before moving on. "There was this one story I remembered hearing a couple months back about some party in Forks. They said you broke some girl's nose and ended up getting arrested."

"That one's almost true. I didn't break her nose or get arrested, but I did give her a black eye," I paused. "She deserved it, though."

"Okay, well there was this one from a while ago that when your brother used to sell, um, stuff, that he would bring you with him and you'd be like, his backup, in case anything went wrong. That, and that you once stabbed a guy that tried to scam him, but I don't think anyone ever thought that was true."

I leaned back on my bed, resting on my hands. "I knew Bear used to deal, but I didn't find out till after he got caught. He would've never let me around that shit."

"He sounds like a good brother," Embry said, and if it was anyone else I would've doubted his sincerity. But that was something I really never had to doubt with Embry. He always meant what he said.

"Yeah," I said, sounding a bit wistful.

Embry didn't push it, though, and he laughed a little when he said, "Is it true that your mom set you up to go to prom with Quil?"

I groaned. "Ugh, yes, and I didn't even know about it. My mom used to think that me and Quil would get married. Which I mean, if she wanted that to happen, she probably shouldn't have raised us on the idea that we're cousins." I fiddled with my thumbs. "I mean he's basically like my brother, now."

"Quil talks about you a lot," Embry said, something thick in his voice, "he loves you a lot. And he's really protective of you."

"He doesn't have to be. It sounds like I've built up quite the reputation." I leaned forward, elbows resting on my knees. "I wouldn't fuck with me after hearing all of that."

Embry shrugged. "He can't help it, I guess."

I wanted him to admit that there was some part of him that was intimidated by me, in the same way I felt intimidated by him. But he didn't, and I felt like there was this imbalance of power between us. He had these strange affects on me that I couldn't control; he was either calming, draining all the anger out of me with just a couple of words and a soft smile, or he was sending me over the edge with nerves and uncertainty. Embry just seemed so unaffected by me. "What about you?" I asked. "You wanna hear your rumors?"

He titled his head. "There are rumors about me?"

"You can't drop out of school for a month and started walking around the woods barefoot without people speculating."

I was entering dangerous territory, and I couldn't read his face. I never could. There was this reservation about him. With Bear and Kim and Quil and Bobby, everything was just out there. They were loud and open and you could see their emotions processing on their face in real time. Embry was different. He was subtle. It was gentle, like the rest of him. "Okay, I'll bite. What've people been saying?"

I raised my shoulders. "Everyone seems to think you're in some sort of cult. I've heard murderous cult, anarchist cult, vigilante cult, which I think has the most merit."

"So you think I'm in a cult?" he asked, smile subtle.

My stomach was gnarled and knotted and my limbs felt weak. "You know what I think," I said softly. My words were quite but I knew he would hear them. Embry always heard.

His eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"You're the one who took my journal, right?" I asked, voice louder now, not shaking like I thought it would be. And it felt good to say, the nerves left my body as the words left my mouth. He was quite for a second. "Right?"

He sighed, "Remy," he started, and looked around my room. He always looked away from me when I said something that made him pause, eyes darting around everything but me before he figured out what he wanted to say next. "I just," he said, leaned forward, and froze. He stayed still, eyes narrowed, like something inside him broke. And then it came. A stupid goddamn howl that sent shivers down my spine and at the sound of it he stood and I did too. "I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.

"I guess that's your cue to go." I knew it was but I didn't know what I meant and I thought of that first night I saw the snarling dark wolf and that woman's shrill laughter and I knew somehow the two of them were controlling Embry and Quil and maybe even Bear.

His eyes were moving too quickly. "Remy, I'm sorry," he said, his legs moving him towards my window. "I'll try to explain some stuff later, okay? I gotta go, I do, but I'm really sorry."

And I stood by my bed, watching him. His hands were on the window frame and he was staring at me, waiting for me to give him a goodbye or snap him or give him something but I stood there with all this nervous, angry energy coursing through my veins. I couldn't move. And I watched him sigh and dip out of my window wordlessly.

Embry was gone as quickly as he came and he left me feeling worse than I did before.

That stupid nervous energy had me feeling raw and reckless and unhinged. I reached into my pocket. Ten more messages from Bobby. I called her. She answered after two rings. "What's up?" she asked, quick and direct.

"Do you wanna ditch school tomorrow and get absolutely fucked up tonight?" I asked, voice a little frantic.

Bobby laughed a little. "Hell fucking yeah I do! I'll be at your house in twenty," she said, immediately hanging up on me. And I thought that Bobby was probably the person I loved most.

She parked down the street with her lights off and I crept up from the side, tapping my finger against her window. And as soon as she unlocked the door and I slid in the seat, she shoved two things in my lap. The first was a large bottle of cold cinnamon whiskey that was frosty against my skin. The second was a tiny little black shirt that looked way too small for Bobby, which meant it was way too small for me. "Put that on," Bobby told me, turning her lights back on and flooring it down the street. "We're going to a bar."

"How the fuck are we gonna get into a bar?" I asked, but listened, ripping off my shirt and trying to figure out how I was supposed to wear her's. The straps baffled me. "I don't have a fake," I said while shoving my arms through random openings.

"That shirt and confidence," she informed me. "I've gotten into this bar like, fifty times. Just don't act nervous about getting caught, and you won't get caught."

I knew I figured the shirt out when all of my body parts were sufficiently covered. It was tight and skimpy and made me feel good about the lines and curves of my body. "This isn't like some dumpy dive bar filled with old dudes, right?"

"God have you met me? Of course not."

My skin tingled. "Port Angeles?" I asked, and she nodded. "Sick."

"Don't get me kicked out though, alright? This is the only place I've got that's not in Seattle. Oh, and the drinks are kinda expensive, so down as much of that as you can. I mean, if you really wanna get fucked up." Bobby always gave the best advice.

I unscrewed the top and downed a mouthful. It burned the whole way down. "I've never been to a bar before," I said when it hit the bottom of my throat.

Bobby looked over at me. "It'll be great. You look hot, I look hot. Literally nothing could go wrong."

The ride went quick and I kept throwing back large gulps of the burning liquid till it was about halfway empty. My head felt light and Bobby had the window rolled down so I could pop my head out and let the wind hit my face and my shoulders and my chest. It was warmer, warmer than it usually was and the sky was heavy. Bobby was laughing her magical little laugh while indie girls crooned over her stereo and I leaned backwards out the window, letting my head dangle in the wind. I wanted to drink Embry out of my mind and feel nothing but the wind and hear nothing but Bobby.

By the time we got there my hair was wild and my step was uneven. She parked the car in a parking lot that cost almost twenty-dollars an hour and I wondered if that was even legal. I leaned against the hood of her car and watched the people on the streets pass by. There were never people walking around like this at home. Bobby stepped in front of me and pursed her lips. "You're so messy," she said, and ran her fingers through my hair. She messed with the strands and placed them carefully over my collarbones and when she was done, she gave me a smile. "Perfect. Let's go."

They let us in as easily as Bobby said they would, with a glance up and down and no word about an I.D, they waved us in and I felt giddy and out of control. Bobby grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me further into the dark and crowded building. There were more people than I thought and they were pumping cold air through the whole room. "It's a fucking Thursday," I said into Bobby's ear.

"People are always getting drunk," she said, and pulled me up to a grimy looking bar. She sat on a stool and patted on the other one, looking at me with expectant eyes. "On me tonight," she smiled, and I sat next to Bobby at the bar.

She ordered so easily, not stumbling over any of her words or asking any stupid sounding questions that I would've. And the bartender pushed two drinks towards us and then another two and by the third I my eyes were heavy and the words were coming out of my mouth without much prompting. "You know who I can't fucking stand?" I asked, voice sounding different.

Bobby wasn't in much better shape. "I have a couple of guesses," she giggled, voice in a little bit of a higher pitch than before.

"Embry fucking Call. What a goddamn bastard. You know," I took another sip of my drink and leaned in close to Bobby, "he's always fucking following me everywhere and asking me dumbass questions and he always wants to talk about me but the second I asked one question, he's all, Oh, sorry Remy, I gotta go. I gotta go do my cult stuff or whatever the fuck it is I do that I keep lying about."

"You should kick his ass," Bobby shouted, her voice straining against the loud and thumping music.

"And he's always like, Remy, don't get drunk. Remy, don't start fights with anyone. And so is stupid fucking Quil. And like," I turned to Bobby, placing a hand on her shoulder, "that's why I fucking love you. You always tell me to get drunk and kick someone's ass."

Bobby snorted. "Well what the fuck else are you supposed to do?"

"Exactly!" I shouted back, throwing my hands up in the air because there was finally someone who understood me and what I wanted out of life.

Bobby's lips were tight around her straw, and then she started giggling. "Y'know, sometimes I think we're the only two not boring people alive. I mean like, all my friends are like, they're like those two guys. No one likes having fucking fun anymore!"

I thought of Kim and her crossed arms and tightly-drawn face. Bobby looked at me with a glint in her eyes and she had this ability to take all the negative nerves Embry made me feel and turn them into absolute fucking chaos. "That's why we're best fucking friends, though!" I shouted, feeling so moved I could cry. "Do you wanna dance with me?"

The rest of her drink shot up her straw and she grinned. "You have the best ideas."

Bobby took my hand in hers and she pulled me around like it was a leash. I didn't mind. It was dark and I couldn't see my sneakers and without her hand I would've stumbled too much. "I don't know how to dance," I said in her ear.

"Just follow my lead."

I was drunk enough to feel loose, fingers intertwined with Bobby's and the song making my hips move on their own. It was shitty music and it was loud and there were so many people that I didn't think the way I moved matter. I was clunky and awkward but I kept throwing my head back with laughter anytime I tripped over Bobby's toes. I fell into her a couple times, letting my cheek rest against her chest for a minute before shooting back up and awkwardly swaying to beats I wasn't fast enough for. It was freeing and dizzy and Bobby's hand was warm enough to distract me from that hole in my chest.

Sweat glistened on my chest by the time Bobby decided that this scene was over. "Let's leave," she said, voice stern suddenly. And while my eyes were rolling back in my head she threw some dollar bills at the bartender and lead me out the door. She was done so abruptly.

The chill outside air hit my skin like a brick, and I collapsed on the edge of the street. "Can we just sit for a second?" I asked, voice airy.

Bobby plopped down next to me. "I can't fucking drive," she groaned, dropping her head in her lap. "Fuck," she mumbled.

And I didn't know why but that was just so funny to me. I giggled until I started snorting with laughter. Bobby shoved my shoulder. "We're gonna be stuck here all night," I said, out of air.

"You know that's not fucking funny," she snapped.

"It's kind of funny."

And there was a warmth on the other side of me. I jumped, looking to my side to see an older looking man with thin eyes and scruffy blonde hair. "What's kind of funny?" asked an unfamiliar and deep voice.

"None of your business," Bobby said sharply, and grabbed my arm to pull me up beside her.

The man looked up at us, smiling. "Ah, c'mon guys. Don't be like that. I just wanted to talk."

Bobby held my arm tight but stood behind me, chest pressed into my back. I narrowed my eyes. "Why would we wanna talk to you?" I asked, feeling genuinely confused.

And then he stood, standing maybe just a foot or two away from me. "Well, you don't have to be rude. I'm just trying to be friendly."

"Remy," Bobby warned.

"Okay, then stopped trying," I said, voice taunting.

The blonde man with sallow skin snickered. "You know honey, you got a real bad attitude problem."

Bobby was frantic in my ear. "Remy can we please just go?"

"And you shouldn't go picking trouble with people you don't know. Might get you and your little bitch in trouble."

Her fingernails were digging into my skin. "What the fuck did you just say?" I snapped, shaking Bobby's grip off and taking a step towards him.

"I said you and your little bitch-"

And my fist was in his face. Bobby screamed and my knuckles cracked his nose and got coated in his blood. And while he was stumbling back, Bobby grabbed my forearm and ran, pulling me away from the scene while he was shouting something incoherent. We sprinted down the street together, Bobby not letting my arm go, while I laughed and she shouted. She pulled me into an alley. "Remy what the fuck was that?"

I shrugged. "It was fucking nothing. He called you a bitch and he was all gross."

"Nothing? That wasn't fucking nothing Remy! That wasn't some scrawny bitch from Forks that was a grown ass man! He could've been dangerous. He could've killed you, Remy! You can't go doing that shit here! What the fuck?"

"It's whatever," I said, pulling my phone out and dialing a number. I pressed the phone to my ear and tapped my foot against the pavement.

"It's not fucking whatever Remy! Who are you calling? I can't believe you just fucking did that," she rambled, pacing in small steps and pulling at the roots of her hair.

There was a groggy voice on the other end of the phone. "Hello?"

"Hey, Quil? Can you come pick me and Bobby up? We went to a bar and now she's too drunk to drive home and also she's mad at me because I punched a guy."

I sat on the hood of Bobby's car while we waited, kicking my feet out in the air and letting them drop back against her car. I half-hoped I dented it, but not so much that I tried. Bobby was in the driver's seat, stewing. She wouldn't let me wait in the car with her but every five minutes she'd roll down her window and yell at me, calling me a hotheaded bitch or something vaguely insulting but not that well-developed. And I was thinking about how much she liked my hotheaded bitchiness in the bar. The temperature was dropping and there were goosebumps on my skin and I was feeling too drunk for the seriousness.

Quil pulled into the parking lot raging, tires screeching while his truck pulled up next to us. He slammed the door shut and stared at me, big brother eyes furious. "Rosemary," he said, voice dripping in anger.

I rolled my eyes. "You're not my fucking mom, Quil. You don't get to pull the full name card."

And my gut dropped when the passenger door opened and Embry jumped out, looking at me with that same goddamn disappointment. "What are you doing, Remy?" he asked, voice so hurt and cutting it made me squirm.

But there was still whiskey in my veins and I didn't want to look him in the eyes. "Wishing I had a fucking cigarette."

"God, can you just go one minute without acting like an asshole?" Quil snapped. "Where's Bobby?"

I jerked my thumb towards the driver's seat, kicking my feet a little harder now. I didn't look behind me while the two of them spoke, Quil's low and Bobby's loud. I tried to block out her complaints about me. I didn't wanna listen. And I didn't wanna look at Embry, so I ignored his stares too.

"Remy," Quil said, voice harsh. I turned to see him hanging out of the driver's seat of Bobby's car. "I'm taking Bobby home. Embry's gonna drive you home in my truck."

I pouted. "I don't wanna drive home with Embry."

"You should be feeling grateful for him. If he wasn't here I would've skinned you alive," he said, and then slammed the door shut behind him.

Reluctantly, I jumped off the hood and dragged me feet over towards Quil's truck. I made the mistake of looking at Embry. He wasn't hiding his emotions like he normally did, the absolute agony he was feeling was right there on his face, for everyone to see. It made my guy sink. "Hey Remy." I turned my head at Bobby's voice. She was leaning over Quil, head almost out the window with big wet eyes. "I'm sorry I called you a bitch. Thanks for protecting me."

I gave her a sad little smile before jumping into Quil's truck.

The tenseness was unbearable. I stared at Embry while he drove, studying the way he tightened his jaw and counting his blinks. He wasn't moving but every now and then one of his features would twitch. And I wanted him to do something. To yell at me for drunkenly dragging me out in the middle of the night, to lecture me about safety and responsibility, to do literally anything. But he just maintained the speed limit and kept his eyes fixed on the road. I shoved my hand towards his face. "My knuckles are bleeding."

His shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath. "I'll get you some ice," he told me tightly.

I hummed, desperate to get something out of him. "I think it was okay for me to punch that guy in the face. He called Bobby a bitch and was really rude and I was just trying to protect my friend."

"Okay."

"Are you mad at me?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"No."

"Yes you are," I argued.

"Why'd you ask if you thought you knew?"

"Because you're not talking to me and it's weird."

Embry's grasp on the wheel tightened. "It's really scary for me when you do these things Remy. I feel like I always have to be worried about you because you don't care about your own safety. It's like, like you want to put yourself in danger."

I picked at my nails. "I didn't ask you to worry about me."

"Yeah, well I do!" he snapped, and I jumped. I had never seen him angry before. I wouldn't have been able to imagine him angry. But he was and he was shaking and I cowered. "I do, Remy. I worry about you a lot. And that's not gonna change now, alright? So next time you wanna run off into a city and sneak into a bar and put yourself in danger can you just pretend that you care about me enough not to put me through this again?"

"I-I'm sorry," I said, voice croaking. "I just don't understand it. I don't understand you."

He still wouldn't look at me. "You don't have to understand it. Just know it's true."

I pulled my legs tight up to my chest. "Quil hates me."

Embry sighed. "Quil doesn't hate you."

"Yes he does."

"He's worried about you. He's worried you're gonna end up like your brother."

And there was something about those words that hit me so hard in my chest that I thought I couldn't breathe. I wanted to cry but there were no tears and I held onto my legs tighter and sucked in air through my nose like it was disappearing around me. "Can you please...will you stay with me tonight?"

"What?"

"I don't wanna be alone."

Embry looked over at me with his gentle glossy eyes and there was something different about the way he looked at me. "Yeah, I'll stay." He took a hand off the wheel and placed it on my back, gently rubbing his thumb over my shoulder blades while I looked for air. "I'll stay with you, Remy."


	15. chapter fifteen: the cliff

Embry was gone by the time the sunlight forced me to open my eyes and for whatever reason that made me feel sicker than the hangover. I had fallen asleep with him sitting by the window, watching me while I mumbled about how shitty everything was. He didn't say much, just occasionally brushed my hair out of my face and told me to close my eye and rest. And now he was gone.

I wondered where my parents were and whether or not they knew I was lying in bed instead of sitting in class and figured they probably didn't care either way. I was still wearing Bobby's shirt and it left stark imprints on my skin and I didn't feel as good in it as I did the night before. My skin felt dried up and tight and it no longer felt like mine. The whole in my chest was pounding and I wanted to throw up but I couldn't, so I just settled on feeling awful.

For about a half hour after I woke up, I just lied in bed, getting used to the rumbling in my stomach and the flashing lights in the corners of my eyes. I tried to keep my head empty, but I kept thinking about the way Quil shouted at me and snapped and how much like Briah he thought I was. I guessed that had a different meaning than I thought it did.

When people told me I reminded them of Bear, I thought they meant I was headstrong and funny and brave. I thought they meant I cared deeply and intensely and was protective and loyal and proud and now I was starting to think that there was something more sinister in their comparisons and people didn't think of my brother in the way that he really was. I didn't used to think of Bear in any other way but the person who took care of me when my parents didn't. But there were memories of him that were coming back to me, memories that I cherry picked to forget. I could see him standing over a limp and faceless body with blood smeared on his face. I could see him throwing punches into trees and flicking knives out at strangers and I wanted to forget them again. I wanted to replace him with the sound of him singing loudly in the car while he drove me to school or him carrying me on his back or showing me his favorite movies while our parents screamed below us. But now I was thinking that when people said I was like Bear, they meant I was violent and bloodthirsty, cruel and vindictive.

I didn't know who he really was anymore, really. And if I found him again, standing in the woods with his back straight and expression cold, I didn't know what I would say.

My phone buzzed against my dresser and I groaned. I didn't care who it was but I didn't want to talk to them. "Hello?" I answered, voice gruff.

"Come get breakfast with me. I need to fill my body with grease and bacon and shit," Bobby demanded.

"Yeah, whatever. Just come pick me up," I said, trying to sit up in my bed. "Will you pay as an apology for calling me a bitch?"

"I would've paid anyway. Just get ready, I'm already on my way."

There was something extremely comforting about a dressed down Bobby. When her hair was all messy and yesterday's eyeliner was smudged and ashy, she was almost normal looking. I didn't look out of place sitting next to her. She held her face tight in her hands and stared down at the diner table. We both looked lazy and sleep-deprived, instead of just me. "I feel like such shit," she complained. "I can't believe I gotta get all dressed and do this shit all over again tonight."

I was stirring my coffee with a dented spoon and watching the curdled creamer float to the top. "What if we just didn't do that?"

Bobby rolled her eyes and leaned back into the booth. "I have a reputation to maintain. Plus, I think I convinced Amber to come."

"I thought we didn't like Amber."

"No, we don't like Wendy."

"But Wendy is dating Amber."

"Yeah."

"And Wendy is not coming?"

"Right."

"And Wendy is aware and okay with the fact that Amber's sleeping at your house?"

Bobby scrunched her face up with her hands. "It's complicated."

Our food came quickly and it was hot and steaming in front of us. I pushed my eggs around with my fork, feeling nauseous, while Bobby stole home fries off my plate. "How was the ride home with Quil?" I asked.

It was funny for me to imagine Quil and Bobby trapped in such close proximity for an hour, and even funnier when considering how trashed Bobby was and how mad Quil was. Bobby swallowed before she said, "I'm actually impressed at how much I've managed to make him dislike me. I've never had a hater before, but I think it's a true marker of success."

I laughed. "Jesus, what did you do to him?"

Bobby shrugged. "Just talked, I guess. I felt really bad about yelling at you and then I started crying. I got mad at him for being mad at you, but he didn't really say anything the whole time. Just drove me home, grumpily. Also, I was like, super worried that Embry was gonna pop your eyeballs out and make keychains out of them. Glad to see you're fine."

"Why do you think that's realistic?"

Bobby shrugged. "I dunno, I guess it's the way he looks at you. You probably don't even notice but it's so intense. He's so obsessed with you and he doesn't even try to hide it."

I nibbled on my toast and looked down at my plate. I felt the stares sometimes, I was just too nervous to return them. "He's just, I dunno, wants to be my friend, I guess."

Bobby looked at me like she didn't believe me. "Yeah, I'm sure that's his end goal. How did your drive home go?"

"I dunno, fine I guess. We argued a little and he seemed kind of upset, but, I dunno. It kinda just seemed like he was worried about me. And then I got upset and he..." I trailed off, face feeling hot and throat tight. And even though my whole body felt tingly, like my cells were really alive, I smiled.

Bobby's stare was intense. "And then you what, Remy?" But I didn't answer and I shoved a forkful of eggs in my mouth. Her eyes widened. "Oh my god, Remy, did you guys fuck?"

"No!" I protested loudly, eggs flying out of my mouth. "I just, ugh, all he did was stay with me until I fell asleep. He sat against the window by my bed and he was gone before I woke up."

"That's worse! Oh my god, Remy, that was probably the best moment of his entire life," Bobby gawked. "You trusted that boy to watch you sleep?"

"Can we talk about something else?" I asked, voice squeaky. "I'm pretty sure Embry hates me now anyways."

But Bobby just rolled her eyes at me. "You're so stupid sometimes. Like, seriously, no one hates you, especially not him."

"That's not true," I argued, "Kim hates me."

"Kim hates you because she threw you under the bus for a literal ounce of male attention and she doesn't like that you called her out on it," Bobby stated plainly. "And who cares about Kim anyways? She smells like an old person and looks like a hard boiled egg."

"Jared hates me."

Bobby looked at me like I was being difficult and stupid. "Jared hates you because he's a jealous and possessive asshole and because your brother bashed his face in that one day in the cafeteria."

I choked on my food and felt numb. The images started to rush back to me. Briah throwing fist after fist and the blood that splattered on his face was Jared's. My heart was hammering. "That was him?" I thought of Jared and the way he always looked at me like I was the most despicable thing on earth and I used to ask myself how he could live with himself, saying the things he said about Briah. I felt so fucking stupid.

"How did you not know?" Bobby asked, and there was something different in her voice. "I thought everyone knew that."

But I was spaced out and replaying everything I could remember from that day. Briah was in the center of the room with his fist dripping blood and he was laughing and I kept staring at him and the body under him was nothing but a still lump of flesh. I remembered the cops pointing guns and I remembered my vision fading as they put cuffs around his wrist while I ducked out of the cafeteria doors. I didn't listen when people talked about it and when Briah got released I wanted to pretend it didn't happen. And all I could do was pinch my thighs for not knowing this and I said to Bobby, "Why?"

She was uncomfortable and her features twisted. "I don't really know. I wasn't even in school that day; I think I ditched or something. I've heard a lot of different stories but I never found out what really happened."

My whole body felt so numb, like there was no more blood left inside of me. My chest felt tight. "I didn't know," I said, and I didn't sound like myself.

Bobby's eyes were warm. "Remy, it's not your fault. No matter what happened between Briah and Jared, you shouldn't get treated like shit because of it. And I mean, who's to say Jared didn't deserve it?" And when I didn't respond, Bobby repeated, "It's not your fault, Remy."

And I didn't think it was my fault. A lot of things were, but this was not. Knowing that did not make me feel any better. I looked down at my eggs and they suddenly felt as appetizing as sand. "Yeah," I said to Bobby, "I guess it doesn't really matter."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

"Not your fault," I assured her.

Bobby looked at me with soft eyes. "Do you wanna go back to my place and watch Alaska Monsters?"

I smiled a little. "Nah, I think I'm just gonna go home after this. I still haven't showered. I'll see you later tonight, though, right?"

Bobby nodded. And then she did my favorite little habit of hers; she threw money down on the table. She noticed the little grin I had, and snickered. "You're such a goddamn gold digger."

* * *

My whole body was shaking when I brought my fist up to the wooden door and knocked three times. I knew what I was doing was probably a bad idea but I was starting to realize that almost every idea I had was stupid. I was operating off nerves and instinct and I tried not to think about it too deeply. I tried not to think about anything. I was just going to improvise.

Jared opened the door a few seconds later and when he saw it was me standing behind it, he immediately tried to close it. But my hand was there to block the door. I looked at Jared with urgent eyes. "We need to talk," I said.

He looked at me with a furrowed brow. "No," he said after a moment, and tried to close the door again.

I pressed my shoulder into it. "You're gonna talk to me right the fuck now or I swear to god I will find a way to ruin your entire life."

He paused, shoulders tensed, and then sighed. "Fine," he said, stepping outside and closing the door behind him, "what do you wanna talk about?" Jared spoke to me like I was a dog, a stupid little thing that couldn't be controlled and I could see how badly he tried to be patient with me.

"Briah," I stated, trying to make my shoulders broad.

Jared's face tensed. "What about him?" he said and this time his voice was sharper.

"Is he the reason why you have it out for me so bad?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

And I guessed I wasn't as patient as Jared was because the frustration was already stark in my voice. "I'm sure you remember the day Bear absolutely beat your ass in front of literally everyone we've ever known. How could you forget? It must have been humiliating. What I wanna know is if that's the reason you hate me so badly. So much that you'd destroy the only real friendship your girlfriend's ever had."

Jared didn't move but he stared off above my head, focusing his eyes on nothing. He took a deep breath before he spoke. "Remy, this conversation is pointless."

"Don't act dense. All you have to do is say yes or no."

"You know I'd do anything for Kim, right? I know that you think I'm a really bad guy, but I know you know how much I love her. And I know you know what it's like too, from the way Embry puts up with all your bullshit just to keep you safe. So when I saw you around Kim, drinking and fighting and acting exactly like your brother, I knew it wasn't even a little bit safe for her to be around you." His words were sharp and he spat them out at me like he hoped they would cut me.

I felt faint. "That doesn't make any sense. I wouldn't have hurt Kim. I wouldn't hurt anyone for no reason."

Jared's eyes were thin and his shoulders were slightly shaking. "Do you know why Briah did what he did to me that day?" he asked, and paused, like he was waiting for me to give him an answer. "No, Remy, I'm seriously asking. Because I don't. He just picked me up by the collar and picked a fight with me. I had never even talked to him before that day."

I shook my head and I tried to fight back the tears in my eyes. "He wouldn't do that."

"He did, Remy. He did that to me and put me in the hospital for literally no other reason than he just felt like it. And that's why," he paused, sucking in air and stopping. "I don't know if you would do the same thing, or even anything similar. But I wasn't gonna risk it with Kim. Even if she hated me because you stopped talking to her, it didn't matter because I wasn't gonna let you hurt her."

I felt like my entire body was on fire. "That's so fucking stupid. I don't know why Briah did that to you. Okay? I don't, and I'm sorry that he did. But that has nothing to do with me and just because he did that to you it doesn't give you the right to interfere with other people's lives like that! And instead of just asking me about it you went around and blindly insulted me and picked fights with me and over what? Something that happened a year ago with my dead fucking brother? That's so stupid."

"Is it? Because all you've ever done since then is prove me right," he said, voice grave. "You're a lot more like him than you think."

I bounced on my leg and my thoughts were rushing so quickly I couldn't settle on one. "Yeah, Bear had problems and so do I. Everyone has problems. But I wouldn't have ever done anything to hurt my friends, and I never would've put any of them in danger."

Jared's eyes were sad when he said, "Honestly, Remy, I wish I could trust you on that." There was a brief silence between us before he opened his door back up and said, "If it makes you feel any better, I'm sorry about how this all went down."

And weirdly enough, it did. Just not enough.

Hours later, when the sun had set and dusk had settled, I dangled my legs over the edge of a cliff. I thought about how badly I wanted to drink and my throat was begging to burn but I couldn't. Every time I thought of drinking, I imagined Jared telling me I was just like my brother and it made me feel sick. I wanted to walk around in the woods until I found Bear and I wanted to ask him why he hurt people and why he thought that would help. I wanted to jump off the edge and plunge into the water just to know how cold it would feel against my skin. I wanted to do anything but all I could do was sit on the edge of this goddamn cliff and stare as the waves crashed into the rock.

I should've been with Bobby, helping her pick out a tastefully-revealing outfit and telling her if her lipstick was out of place while she waited for the girl she liked to show up, but I was here. And when I texted her and said I'd be late, she just told me that she understood and that it wouldn't be fun until I showed up. But I didn't want to stand up. The jagged rocks pressed into the bottom of my thighs but I felt like I was glued there. I thought about kicking my shoe off, just to see how far it would fall.

I thought that maybe I could've sat there until the sun rose again and swallowed me up but I knew that I had work in the morning and my fantasies about disappearing weren't realistic. I couldn't disappear into the woods with a bottle of gin in my hand and never be seen again. I wasn't Briah. I had to tell myself that a lot. I wasn't Briah. I didn't even know what being Briah meant anymore.

Briah used to live flawlessly in my memory; the ideal image of a big brother who loved me more than life itself and did what he had to do to take care of me when our debt-ridden parents couldn't. I used to think he wasn't the type of person who could kill himself without leaving a note. But maybe that was the same type of person who would break some random kid's nose in the middle of school just to establish dominance.

I didn't know who he was.

Tears built up in my eyes and my whole body started shaking. I wished I could just chew on my cheek until the tears disappeared but it didn't take long for them to take over my entire body and my shoulders began shaking with deep and heavy sobs and there was nothing in the world I wanted more than my big brother back. Not the one everyone knew but the one I did. That was Bear. And I missed him so much the pain rocked through my entire body. I wanted to scream.

My face was all wet with tears and my body was trembling when I heard the footsteps behind me. I didn't have to turn around to know who it was because he was always here when I was broken down like this. My voice was shaky when I said, "How do you always know where I am?"

Embry sat next to me, the side of his leg lightly pressed against mine as they dangled above the drop together. "I guess I'm just a really good guesser."

I pulled my sleeve over my hand and rubbed my face with it, trying to soak up all the tears. "I'm sorry about last night," I said, and my voice caught again.

"You don't have to apologize to me," Embry said. He brought his thumb up to my cheek and brushed a fat tear away from my skin. "I know you have your own way of coping with how rough things have been. It can just be a little stressful for me."

I wanted to look at him but he was so close to me and the way his eyes were fixated on the side of my face made my breath uneven. "I guess I should probably just take better care of myself."

Embry picked up a loose little rock and tossed it over the edge. I leaned my head down, watching it tumble until it broke the surface. "What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said, my fingers tracing the fabric on my knees. "I was supposed to go to some thing at Bobby's tonight but," I sighed, "I just can't stop thinking about Bear."

"We're gonna find him, Remy."

"No, it's not that. It's just, today I found out that Briah brutally beat up Jared before he went missing. And I talked to Jared about it and it's just like, he did it for no reason. He just wanted to hurt someone, to let everyone know he was dangerous. That's not," my voice hitched and strained over the tears, "that's not my brother. And if that's the type of thing he did then, it's like I don't know who he was."

He was silent for a moment, and I counted to six before he spoke again. "People aren't just like, one thing, you know? Briah did a lot of stuff that maybe you didn't know about or that you wouldn't have liked, but that doesn't change the other parts about him, y'know? He's still your brother. And from the way you talked about him, it sounds like he was a really good brother, and maybe you didn't really know about this other part of him because he was trying to protect you."

There was blood in my mouth. "He did really bad things."

"Sometimes good people do bad things."

"I guess I understand why Jared hates me so much," I said. "When he said those things about my Bear, I was just so, I dunno amazed? That he could say those things about my dead brother to me. But I get it now. Him being dead doesn't change what he did."

Embry's shoulders stiffened. "That doesn't give Jared the right to act like such an ass to you," he said, words firm. "And I know this is beside the point, but you probably shouldn't be going to see Jared alone. It's not...safe."

I chuckled gently. "Alright, I won't." I was tired of arguing.

"You know bite down on your cheek all the time?" Embry said, gently poking the side of my face where I normally chewed on. "You do it a lot while you talk."

I felt strange. "Bad habit."

I looked down at the water again. The waves were so loud I could hear them crashing from up here. There was something so soothing about the sound; it was the only thing louder than my heartbeat. "Do you think Briah would've liked me?" Embry asked suddenly.

"No."

"No?"

And I dared to look over at Embry, who was leaning back on his palms with his lips tugging up in a half smile. "He would probably think you were kind of a pussy, honestly."

Embry threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, come on."

"Or he'd at least call you a narc."

He shook his head, grinning. "Do you think I'm like that?"

"Hmmm, well you've taken care of me drunk twice now, and as far as I know you haven't snitched. So I'll say no to you being a narc. As far as being a pussy, I don't know. I'll have to wait and see." He laughed again. It was a nice sound that involuntarily made me smile and I was so bewildered at how much easier it felt to talk to him. "Do you wanna come with me to Bobby's tonight?" I asked, not thinking about it before the words came out of my mouth.

Embry's face fell. "I wish I could. There's some stuff I have to talk care of tonight. But if you want, I can walk you there. It's not that far, right?"

I tried to mask my disappointment with a smile. "Yeah, sure."

Embry stood up and offered me his hand and I, in an act of defiance against my own self, I took it. His hand was warm and soft and I only held it for a second but it stopped my breath. I brushed the dirt of my legs and walk with Embry back towards the street.

And while we walk together and he talked about how far behind he was falling in school, I thought about how strange we probably looked together. Embry was so much taller than me I didn't even reach his chin. He always looked so serene, so at peace, with his long and lean limbs and defined muscles. And there was always this ferocity in my eyes and my stout limbs were constantly tensed. We were so opposite to each other but when we talked everything blended together so smoothly I wondered how I ever even got mad at him in the first place.

Embry walked me all the way up to Bobby's door and I left him with a promise to help him with his essays and he wrapped his arms around my waist so tightly he lifted my feet off the ground and this time, instead of keeping my arms pinned down to my side, I snaked my arms around his neck and gave him a hug that lasted a little too long. His voice was low when he said goodbye and I watched him disappear into the forest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remy is an aries sun with a capricorn rising and a scorpio moon. bobby is a sagittarius with a leo rising and an aquarius moon. embry is a taurus with a libra rising and a pisces moon. quil is a gemini with a sagittarius rising and a virgo moon. briah is a cancer with a gemini rising and an aries moon. this will never come up again but its important to me that you all know this. i will not be taking any criticisms.
> 
> remy to literally every person in her life: aren't you tired of being nice? don't you wanna go apeshit?


	16. chapter sixteen: the cake

"Okay, the batter is really watery. Is it supposed to be like this? I thought it should've been thicker by now."

Embry Call was standing in the middle of his kitchen with cake batter in his hair and flour on his cheek. He held a spoon above the bowl and batter dripped off of it like water. "I don't know. Did you follow the directions I gave you?"

"I mean I thought I did, but now I can't remember if I added too much milk or not." I shot him a look. "Hey, you ate the cookies I made. You knew the skill level you were getting when you asked me to help."

I didn't really eat them. I tried, but they were pretty inedible (which, I guess, just enhanced his point). "Add some more flour."

"Don't you work at a bakery? I feel like it would've been easier to just buy something there," he said while he dumped an unmeasured amount of flour into his bowl.

I was cracking eggs into my own bowl and thinking about how out of everything I could've inherited from my mother I got her cooking abilities. "I'm sorry, do you want to spend fifty-dollars on some bullshit French cake when we could make a better one for like ten dollars?"

Embry started stirring and frowned into his bowl. "I don't know about better."

"You're making a vanilla cake. How hard can it be?"

"Well, how's the chocolate part doing?"

The batter in my bowl was thick and lumpy and was a little too reminiscent of mud. "It's brown, at least, so I'm doing that right."

"This is kind of pathetic, isn't it?" Embry said with a low laugh.

I stepped away from the kitchen counter and stood next to him at the table, placing my bowl next to his. Mine looked like clumps of dusty clay, and his looked like milk. He was right; it was pretty pathetic. "Well, what if we just like," I twisted my hands around together in an incomprehensible gesture, "what if we just mixed them together? Like I think that would be fine, right?"

"I don't know how much I can stress this point, but I literally have no idea."

I was already spooning my cake batter into his before he even finished his sentence. "Okay, I'm just doing it, then. God, I hate this so much," I said, furiously whipping the batter around. Once the two were all mixed up together my arm was sore but it almost looked acceptable. "There. That's fine enough, I think. Right?"

Embry dipped his whole finger into the batter and shoved it in his mouth. "I mean, it tastes fine."

"Quil better fucking appreciate this," I grumbled, trying to get all of the batter into the pan. "I don't think I've ever worked this hard at anything in my life."

Embry watched while I shuffled around his kitchen and threw the pan in the oven. "I don't think it would be possible for him to be mad at you if you're giving him a whole cake."

"I dunno," I said, taking a seat next to him at his kitchen table. "I did make him drive an hour to come get me and Bobby after midnight. And I was kind of a dick when you guys got there. Honestly, I'm impressed that you forgave me so easily."

"It's impossible for me to stay mad at you," Embry said with this strange look in his eyes that made me shiver.

And we were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other. I was trying to figure out what it was about Embry that made me act so different than how I've always been, and how I wasn't even upset about it. When I was around him I let go of the tenseness in my features and limbs and I felt free of any need to act stronger than I felt. And I was trying to figure out what Embry was thinking when he stared at me with those eyes and that smile playing on his lips. But when the sound of the door opening and swinging shut cut into our moment, Embry jumped, expression shifting.

Embry's mother was thin and pretty with a long face and tight skin. Her eyes were deep-set into her head and heavy, and they narrowed at the sight of her son. "I didn't think you'd be home," she said with a familiar coolness in her voice. She didn't look at me.

"Hey, Mom," Embry said, sounding strained. "This is my friend, Remy."

I gave a small wave. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am."

She did the thing most people on this reservation do when they hear my name and piece together who I was. Her features tightened quizzically and then her face dropped when she figured out my last name. It was fine, I was used to it. And now that I was finally figuring out exactly who my brother was, I understood. But Embry was tense beside me. "Remy Cree?" she asked, and I nodded. She gave her son a sad look. "Oh, Embry."

But he didn't say anything when she shook her head and looked at me like I was the last thing she wanted in her house. She turned around, disappeared into some room. And I didn't want to call Embry's mom a bitch, but I sure did think it a couple times.

"Alright," I mumbled, mostly to myself. I glanced over at Embry, looking for some sort of explanation about his mom. But he was still, jaw locked and shoulders trembling, the same way Jared always looked whenever I spoke to him. "Dude," I said, placing a hand on his arm, "are you good?"

At my touch, the trembling stopped, but there was still anger clear all over his face. "I don't like the way people think about you, or the things they say about your family," he said after a moment.

"Well, it could be worse," I said with a shrug, "you could be me, and then everyone's mom would hate you."

"You don't seem that bothered by it."

"Why would I be? It has no effect on me either way. And it's not like what they're saying isn't mostly true," I reasoned. "Besides, me being upset about it isn't gonna stop it. It's easier not to care."

Embry leaned back into his chair. "It still bothers me. And I don't want my own mom thinking that way about my, I mean, I don't want her thinking that way about you. It's not fair. She can just be," he paused, rubbing his face with his hands.

I watched him carefully, studying the way he crossed his arms tightly and lips thin. "Mommy issues?" I asked, and he flicked his eyes over me. "It's okay, I have them too."

He must have been so uncomfortable with the way the conversation shifted over to him, and his eyes were tight. "It wasn't always like this. Things have just been hard lately. I have a lot of obligations she doesn't understand. I'm not really doing anything wrong or bad, I don't think. But it's not like I could tell her that. She thinks I'm in like a drug ring or something like that."

"Yeah, throwing my name in there probably doesn't help, either," I joked, and Embry glared at me for a second. "That sucks, though. She's probably just super worried about you. It's always hard for moms when their kids get older, and even worse when they feel like they can't control them anymore. And I'm sure the Satanic cult isn't helping."

"Not a Satanic cult."

I pursed my lips. "Yeah, I thought that one might be a long-shot."

Embry threw an arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his side, and I rested my head on his shoulder. It was such a casual movement. It almost felt like nothing to me, simple like breathing. His fingers tangled in the ends of my hair. "I like your nose ring by the way. It's very cute."

"Thanks. I made Bobby do it when I was mad at you."

I was sure that made him roll his eyes. He chuckled. "How was Bobby's last night?"

"It was fine. We had a drug orgy."

"You're not funny," Embry said, gently flicking the edge of my jaw.

I smiled. "Nah, it was nice though. I never really had big slumber parties when I was a kid. I imagine that it would be like that, but instead of talking about boys, Bobby just whispered in my ear all night about a girl two feet away." I paused. "I like Bobby. She's a good friend."

"Isn't she kinda mean?" Embry asked.

"Not really. Not to me, at least. And from what I've seen, she's only really mean to people to deserve it. And that's good, I guess, because I'm not really the nicest person I've ever met either. Bobby gets me."

Embry stopped playing with my hair. "I get you," he mumbled.

I snorted. "It's not a competition, Embry."

"Right," he said quickly, and started tapping his fingers against my arm, "but let's say it was a competition. Who would be winning, me or Bobby?"

"Probably Bobby," I said honestly, and smirked.

And I expected him to protest, but he ignored my statement and his voice changed when he said, "Jacob's coming."

"How do you know?" I asked, eyebrows raised. But then I heard the door open and swing close like it did when his mother came in and I quickly sat up, brushing Embry's arm off of my shoulder. I looked at Embry with skeptical eyes, but he just smirked at me. "Fucking psychics."

Jacob Black stood in front of us with tired eyes and slumped shoulders. He looked tired and sad and nothing like the magnetic boy I used to crush on. There was something about Jacob that was so monumentally different than how he was before, and even different from the rest of the cult boys. He stood differently than Embry, different from Quil. "Hey guys," he greeted, not looking the least bit surprised to see me there. "What's up?"

"Helping Remy bake a cake for Quil," Embry said easily, sounding kind of pleased with himself.

"Oh, that's nice," Jacob said, and then titled his head at me. "Did you hit him?"

"Nope."

"Threaten him?"

"Nah. He had to come get me in Port Angeles cause I was too drunk to drive home."

Jacob shrugged. "That was gonna be my next guess."

"So what's up dude?" Embry asked.

"Right," Jacob said, shifting the weight between his legs and knotting his hands together. He looked back and forth between me and Embry before he said, "Plans changed. It's happening tonight. Bella's in Florida right now, so."

And with Jacob's word, there was a shift in mood. His eyes were grave when he spoke and I knew there was some greater implication that I couldn't understand. But from the way Embry stiffened next to me and how tight his smile was, I knew that he was aware. It was a cult thing. And I thought for a second about how frustrating it was to be lost in this conversation and how much worse it probably was for Embry's mom and suddenly I felt bad for thinking she was a bitch. "Great," Embry said tightly.

"Sorry, Rem," Jacob said, and I grimaced at the nickname of my nickname, "but Embry's mine tonight."

I tried not to make it clear how uncomfortable I was. I figured that was just how he was, even if he looked depressed and worn down, he was still Jacob Black. I remember his presence always being warm. He laughed loudly when his hair was long and everyone around him felt welcomed. He acted so much more carefree than I ever thought I could be. I guess that's why I used to like him so much. "That's okay, you can have him. I was only using him to help me with the cake. Me and Bobby are going to some Forks soccer game tonight anyways."

Embry furrowed his features. "Why?"

"Bobby likes to make fun of the players," I said with a shrug.

Jacob raised an eyebrow at me. "And that's fun?"

"Yeah," I said laughing. "They're awful."

Embry rolled his eyes at me and placed his hand on my shoulder. There was always contact, one way or another. "You guys are mean," he said to me, tone light, and then turned to Jacob. "Thanks for letting me know man."

"Yeah no problem," he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'll see you tonight. Later, Rem."

I waved, mouth pressed into a tight little line when he called me that dumb name again. Jacob turned around and left, large frame disappearing behind the hall. "Cult stuff?" I asked Embry when I heard the door close again, signalling Jacob's departure.

Embry frowned at me. He didn't like my constant questioning about his after school activities but he never really denied that there was something going on. Not that he could, it was pretty clearly established that there was something going on that I didn't yet have the capability to understand. "How long left on the cake?"

I dropped my head back to look at the timer on the oven. "Twenty minutes. Why?" I asked, straightening up. "Tryna get rid of me?"

"Never," he assured me. "Just wondering if that's enough time for you to read my English essay."

Embry Call was smart, and I guess I was kind of a bad person for being surprised by that. His phrasing was clunky and awkward and couldn't maintain a consistent tone but he had ideas on pieces I had read a million times that I had never even thought of. The way he wrote was thoughtful and his ideas were complex and even though it was about a page and a half too short and he spelled the main character's name wrong, I was more impressed by his paper than anything I had ever written. I told him, "This was actually really good."

His expression brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah," I asserted, "it's like, really good. And I mean, I've read Frankenstein like six hundred times. And I never would've thought to connect it to Nietzche's will to power doctrine."

Embry's face twisted in confusion. "I did?"

"Ugh, you're so smart and you don't even know it."

The timer went off, and I sat there, trying to ice the cake while I explained Nietzche to Embry. He listened, asking questions and bouncing ideas off of me and arguing and a month ago I never would have thought that I'd be debating one of my favorite philosopher's views on nihilism with him. I thought about the time Embry told him that I wasn't what he expected and that the reverse was certainly true. And when Embry looked me in the eyes and told me Nietzhe's ideas were 'fucking stupid,' I was starting to feel different.

And after that, I tried to focus on the frosting that was getting all over my hands but my fingers were shaking and it was substantially harder to spell out words on a cake with frosting than it was with a pencil and paper. I was biting down on my tongue in between my disagreements with Embry. It was bold of him to argue with me over something I was so familiar with that he had just heard of ten minutes prior, and I had to admire that.

"Done," I said proudly, dropping the frosting down on the table and looking at my work with a grin.

Embry leaned over my shoulder and read, "'Sorry I'm a dickhead,'" Embry smiled at me, "it's great."

I beamed at him.

* * *

Bobby and I huddled together under a fleece blanket she had brought from her house, steaming hot chocolates in our hands. The temperature had dropped so low it made me shake, and the sky was heavy like it was about to rain. It didn't feel like the middle of spring, but the dead of winter. And I almost felt bad for the skinny boys with their pale legs running around in shirts. But I didn't feel that bad.

"Do you see number fourteen?" Bobby asked, resting her legs on top of mine. "Our parents work together, so we always used to have to go to these workplace events together. And when we were young he'd always push me over and I'd get dirt on my dresses and shit. So a couple months ago I made out with his girlfriend, and then she broke up with him and we dated for a while."

"I can't tell if that's the meanest thing I've ever heard or the best thing I've ever heard," I replied, watching as the boy she pointed out ran down the field with white puffs of breath.

Bobby giggled. "It was Wendy."

"That's how you met Wendy?" I asked while Bobby threw her head back laughing. "Oh my god, no wonder she's such a bitch. Was she always like that? Even while you were dating her?"

"I dunno," Bobby mumbled. "There were good points, I guess, when she was like, really nice to me. But I think she only dated me because she hated her dumb soccer playing boyfriend and wanted to piss her parents off. I mean, there were some points where I thought she might've even been straight. But I guess she's pretty head over heels for Amber right now."

I bit my lip. The sapphic dating pool in this area must have been too small. "I mean, Amber must not be as great as you think she is. If she had an ounce of taste it wouldn't even be a competition between the two of you." Bobby smiled at me. "I mean, you're literally like, the hottest person I've ever met and Wendy looks like one of those creepy ants from Bug's Life."

Bobby barked out laughter. "She really fucking does."

The other team scored a goal and there was groan of disappointment among the already small but dwindling crowd. "Her and number fourteen over there deserve each other. Ugly blond ants."

Sitting on the bleachers with Bobby, making fun of the people who broke her heart, made me feel normal. When I was there with her, I wasn't some angry little girl with a drinking problem and a dead brother. I was seventeen and loud and laughing and holding onto my best friend's arm while we shivered in the cold. The people around us seemed annoyed at the way our laughs traveled but it didn't matter to me much either way. The hot chocolate was getting cold in my hands as the clock ticked on.

"Do you think any of them are cute?" Bobby asked.

My eyes darted across the field, jumping from sweaty face to sweaty face. "Not really. I mean, they all kind of look the same, right? Same boring faces, just with different color hair."

Bobby tapped her fingers against her cup. "What is your type?"

"I dunno. I guess I never really had one."

"What'd the guy who took your virginity look like?" she asked, curiosity clear in her tone.

My face was hot. "He was pretty tall, dark hair. He had like, arms covered in tattoos, but they all kinda sucked. Like, he had every cheesy dude tattoo I can think of. Looking back I think I was just into him because he was like, twenty. And I mean, by the way, kinda gross to sleep with a sixteen year old when you're twenty."

Bobby scrunched up her nose. "Yeah, that is pretty fucking gross." She paused, watching the game for a moment before she said, "Is it weird that I kinda want to play matchmaker with you?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I'm gonna."

"Don't."

"Oh, come on," she said. "It won't be that bad if you just tell me your type, or like anyone you're into. I mean, how cute would it be if I started dating Amber and you found someone and we could go on double dates!"

I frowned. "That doesn't sound cute at all."

She tugged on my arm. "Please, Remy? Pretty please? Do you really wanna be single forever?"

That question hung in my head for a while, during the rest of the game when Bobby made fun of random boys. Because I didn't really have an answer to that. The thought of finding some random guy to date and share my life with was repulsive, but there was also something heartbreaking and lonely about the idea of never having someone to love. Like, I would always love Bobby, but it was different. And those two thoughts didn't really work well together.

I kept thinking about it after the game ended, and I was leaning against the fence around the field, waiting for Bobby to come out of the bathroom. I tried to picture myself getting hitched to some random, faceless guy, but the idea didn't settle well with me. I tapped my foot against the ground, wrapping the blanket tight around my shoulders.

"You cold?"

I snapped my head around at the unfamiliar voice, and saw a grinning boy in a green jersey with the number four on it. He leaned against the fence next to me and I said to him, "I guess."

He was sweaty and I could smell it and it was disgusting. "You enjoy the game?"

"No."

The boy laughed. "Know anyone on the team?"

"Yeah my friend made out with one of Forks dude's girlfriends so we came here to make fun of you guys," I said candidly, thinking he might be insulted.

But he just kept grinning at me. "So you were rooting for us?"

"No, we definitely made fun of you too."

"You're from the nearby res right? I know a couple people over there. I'm Cameron."

"Okay."

"What's your name?"

"Embry!"

"Embry?"

He was wearing just a black t-shirt when he approached me, wearing a cocky looking smirk that I'd never seen on him before. Embry greeted me with a tight hug, pulling me into his side. "That's me," he said to number four. And then he looked down at me. "Hey, Remy," he said, keeping his arm draped over me. He was warm.

I looked over at the boy and smiled. "Nice to meet you. Bye." I didn't notice whether or not he left before turning over to Embry. "I thought you had weird cult stuff to take care of tonight?"

He shrugged. "Got done early. Actually, it was kind of uneventful. Where's Bobby? She didn't just leave you out here, right?"

"Nah, she's just in the bathroom. There was a long ass line of soccer moms." The warmth of his arm and the blanket was making me start to sweat. "Why'd you come all the way over here?"

Embry's eyes were searching the field and the bleachers. "Just had to make sure you were safe," he said quietly.

"Why wouldn't I be safe?"

He looked down at me with a smile. "Did you see that guy? He was all over you. I mean, I know you could probably take him, but I wouldn't want your knuckles to bleed again."

I frowned. "No, really."

But Bobby was coming out and walking towards us so he gave me a tight smile and said, "I'll tell you later, okay?"

And before I could protest Bobby was standing in front of us. "Hey, Embry. Crazy to see you here, at this event you weren't invited to when you knew Remy would be here. How funny."

I rolled my eyes and stepped away from Embry, tossing the other half of the blanket over Bobby's shoulders. And I wasn't sure if it really happened or not but I thought I saw Bobby stick her tongue out at him. "I get it," he said with a smile. "Just checking up. I'll see you guys later, though," he said, but kept his eyes locked on me.

"Bye," I said, and followed Bobby as she turned us around.

Bobby held on tight to my arm while we walked. "You're getting soft on him" she said, as we approached her car, "and that's when he's gonna go for the eyelids."

"Shut up," I giggled, pushing her a little to the side. But my cheeks were warm and my heart was pounding.


	17. chapter seventeen: the crowbar

I wasn't sure if I was babysitting Jacob Black or if he was babysitting me, or some combination of both, but in a collaborative effort, Embry and Quil had tricked the two of us into spending the day together. Quil (who, when presented with the cake, said he had already forgiven me, but the cake was so disgusting he was mad at not only me, but Embry as well for feeding it to him) had driven straight past my home and into the Black's property under the guise of a quick errand. But Embry was there, sitting with Jacob in his garage, giving me a wide smile. And he and Quil disappeared into the woods, with a vague statement that they just had something to take care of.

"So what did you do to get put in time out?" Jacob asked while he worked under the hood of some car that looked older than me.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I think it's my general temperament and impatience. What about you?"

Jacob grimaced, not looking up at me, but narrowing his expression at the work in front of him. "Bella came by the other day, said hi to all the guys and everything. And we kinda got into a little argument. It was nothing big or anything, but I kinda lost control and said something a little too harsh. Now I can't be trusted to be alone or they think I'm gonna do something dumb over her."

"Like what?"

"I dunno, like go over to Forks and start a fight with her boyfriend or something like that."

"You should do that," I said, messing around with Jacob's tool box, looking through the screws and the wrenches and all the other things I couldn't name. "I mean, I think starting fights is underrated. A lot of people would disagree with me here but sometimes, violence is the answer."

Jacob snickered. "It's honestly so tempting. I think he deserves it."

"What did he do?" I asked, picking up a hammer. "I mean, I know he left her for a while and then came back, but it kinda seems a lot worse than that."

The muscles in his back tensed, and he let out several heavy breaths before he spoke again. "He just, Bella was so in love with this guy. And he just dumped her one day out of nowhere, brought her out into the woods and then left her there. She was lost in there for hours. And then his whole family was gone, they just moved. Bella was really messed up over it, never got any closure or anything. We got really close in that time. And then, he just came back, and she left me. He walked right back into her life like nothing ever happened, business as usual. Now, Bella's gonna up and leave her whole life behind just to be with him. Her friends, her dad, none of that even matters to her now. She's giving it all up for him. Will you please put the crowbar down?"

I dropped it and it clattered around on the ground. "Sorry," I said a little sheepishly. "But yeah, that's like, super unhealthy, and you should definitely kick his ass."

"Bella would hate me for it," he said, voice tight with an emotion I couldn't read. "I wish there was like, something I could do to make her realize how fucked up it is to throw your life away for someone like that. I really care about Bella, but you know, at the end of the day, even if she doesn't feel the same way about me, she's still my best friend. And I don't want my best friend doing something so stupid."

I tried to think of what I would do if Bobby threw away her entire life for some girl that broke her heart before thinking of Kim and I remembered that I didn't have to imagine what that would feel like. "I know what you mean, dude. Like, exactly. But I guess it's like, you gotta let people make their own mistakes. And if she can't see that what she's doing isn't healthy, she has to come to that realization on her own." I paused, and Jacob looked at me with intense eyes. "But what do I know? Whenever I'm upset I get so drunk I throw up on myself."

And he laughed a laugh that reminded me of who he was before he was a heartbroken cult member. "You sound like Embry."

"His emotional insight is rubbing off on me, I guess. You ever notice how he always says the right thing to say?" I tapped my fingers on my knees. "It's like he practices for emotional turmoil in the mirror."

"He does that with you more than anyone," Jacob said, returning his attention to the car. "Most of the time he just makes fun of me relentlessly. I'm only occasionally let in on the wisdom."

"I guess that's the prize I get for constantly having breakdowns." I looked around the garage. It was messy and cluttered and smelled like sawdust. "You should do something to get your aggression out. Like, something cathartic. If you can't beat up her boyfriend, you gotta do something else to get your anger out so you don't snap at her the next time she's around."

Jacob cocked an eyebrow at me. "Like what?"

I looked around the garage. "I dunno, do you have anything kinda sentimental? Something that she gave you or something that represents her in your mind?"

I stood next to Jacob in his backyard, shoulder to shoulder (well, bicep to head, I guess) and stared down a pair of rusted old bikes. They could barely stand up on their own and they looked like they had been left out in the rain one too many nights. "Okay, well this is a little more intense than what I had in mind. But I guess it'll work." I handed Jacob the crowbar. "Go for it dude."

He hesitated, knuckles tight around the crowbar and brows furrowed. "I dunno. This was the first thing we did together. We spent forever working on these."

"And look how that turned out." Jacob glared at me. "You're holding onto a past that isn't relevant anymore. Bella's not the same as she was before. You need closure the same way she does," I urged. I wasn't sure if I really cared if Jacob got over Bella or if I really wanted to see him smash up some bikes with a crowbar, but acting like his life coach gave me some sort of weird feeling of pride.

Jacob raised the crowbar above his head, very slowly, arms trembling like it was heavy. And then, in a motion that was almost too swift for my eyes, he swung it back down, smashing the handle bar off in one clean hit. I gaped. He repeated his motions, faster this time, and brought it down to the seat, leaving a dent so large it looked like it had been run over by a truck.

"Holy shit," I said laughing.

And Jacob looked over at me with a grin. "This does feel nice," he said, and then smashed the wheel with a giddy, childlike laugh. "Do you wanna try?" he asked, handing his little weapon of destruction over to me.

"Nah," I said, mostly not wanting to feel weak next to him. "This is your moment of emotional release. It's also fun to watch you wreck them."

Jacob Black's laughter mixed with the harsh sound of metal banging against metal and I stayed back and watched as he destroyed his emotional little trinkets. I wished I had done something like that when I locked myself up in my room and lost my mind over Kim. I was trying not to think of her much but I couldn't help it when I kept imagining Jared's broken and bloodied face under the unrelenting fists of my brother. It didn't make me mad, like I thought it would, but sad. It was this heavy and exhausting sadness that wore me down and constantly tugged at me. I wished I could beat it and smash it away like Jacob did with those stupid rusted bikes but there was nothing I could destroy that would change the way my brother was. Jacob couldn't let go of the past but I couldn't escape it and I couldn't make that pain go away. I could only slap bandages over it and forget about it for a while. But it always came back.

In front of us, where there was once two distinct bikes, there were now indistinguishably chunks of busted up metal. Jacob stood next to me, smiling softly. "I feel kinda better," he said.

"Yeah," I said, and Jacob placed a hand on the top of my hair and scuffed up my hair. "Hey," I complained, batting away his hand.

"It's hard to accept this," he said softly after a moment, "but it's very fun to destroy things. Thanks Remy."

I crossed my arms over my chest and thought about how Jacob was right. It was so fun to destroy things. It was so fun that I did it frequently and eagerly and maybe once it would be nice to be let things grow instead of tearing them down.

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Jacob and I whipped around to see Quil and Embry approaching and I wished those idiots would wear shirts more often. My eyes lingered a little too long on Embry and his dumb little half grin. His face always looked so peaceful and it sent my nerves on fire. "Teaching Jacob emotional vulnerability and coping skills," I called back at them.

Embry landed at my side, wasting no time before pulling me into his side and resting his chin on the top of my head. "And the bikes paid the price for it."

"Damn, Remy," Quil said, "I would've thought you'd just teach him what to chase whiskey with or something like that. Not convince him to destroy his shit."

I felt Embry tense at Quil's words but by the time he opened his mouth to defend me I said, "You don't chase whiskey. You don't chase anything, if you're not weak."

"How'd it go?" Jacob asked, and I remembered that whatever weird shit the two of them were doing, Jacob was in on it. And I suddenly felt kinda stupid for spending my time convincing Jacob to beat up some metal instead of trying to get information on what Embry and Quil were doing out in the woods.

"Didn't find anything," Embry said quickly. "Bunch of dead ends."

I knew better than to ask him what he was talking about. Especially in front of Jacob or Quil, Embry would just brush it off with some offhand comment and move on. And there was this flicker of annoyance I felt. Whenever the cult was brought into discussion I felt like a toddler, totally oblivious and left out of the loop while the grown ups talked vaguely and in code. It almost made me wonder why he brought me around so much.

"Nothing at all, huh?" Jacob said with a stark frown. "Not even-"

"No," Quil said sharply, cutting him off. "We didn't find anything on the Bella-front. But we weren't really looking that hard."

There was something twisting on Jacob's face. "You didn't even bother to check?"

Embry's arm tightened around me, pulling me in closer to his chest. "Not a priority right now,"

There was an abrupt tenseness but them, and I thought that all the aggression Jacob just let out must've built back up so rapidly from the way he stared at Embry. "Hey, Em," Quil said, voice cutting between the intense silence, "would you take Remy home? I'm gonna hang here for a bit."

"Yeah," Embry replied. "I'll see you guys later then." And I figured I wouldn't really have a say in the matter.

"Bye, Quil. Jacob, let me know the next time you need to break something."

"Will do."

Embry lead me back to the front of the house, where his truck had been parked this whole time. He kept his arm so tight around me that I kept tripping over my own feet. And when I was in the passenger seat with my seat-belt on, I asked, "What was that all about?"

"It was nothing," he said easily, backing out of the driveway smoothly.

"Okay, well what were you and Quil looking for?"

"Nothing."

I wanted to kick him. "Do you ever get tired of lying to me?"

His expression was strained. "Yeah, I do."

My hands balled up into fists and I locked my jaw because I couldn't understand Embry Call. I couldn't understand him or what he did or said or how he made me feel and most of the time I didn't really mind it but it bothered me now. And I wondered how he could want to know so much about me but not tell me anything about him. I didn't say anything, just looked out the windows and hoped that the blurring of the trees would calm me down but I knew it was pointless because the only thing that could calm me down was Embry. I thought of how he lied to me when he walked into my house that first time and how he had lied to me ever since then. He had spent so much time making me feel comfortable around him that I always forgot that he was constantly avoiding the truth.

He pulled into my driveway after a few minutes but I didn't move, feeling committed to my pouting. Embry reached over and touched my hand but I pulled it away from him. "Don't touch me while I'm mad at you."

"Remy," he said, sounding strained. "Will you please just look at me?"

And I shook my head with narrowed eyes because I knew that if I looked at him that stupid calming affect would take over me and I wanted to hang onto this anger for just a little bit longer. "No."

He groaned. "It's not like I don't want to tell you what's going on. I do, okay? It's just hard."

"Why?" I snapped.

"It's just," he said, and then sucked in air, "I worked so hard to get you to give me a chance. And now we're friends and I think you trust me and I'm afraid that if I tell you about what's going on you'll leave. I'm afraid you'd want nothing to do with me."

I looked over at him with my heart beating in my throat and my gut tugged. "Well, I'm not gonna stay in your life if you're just blatantly lying to me. So I guess you'll have to risk it." I didn't wait for a response. I just opened the door and jumped out before he could say something that would make me not mad anymore.

My mother was in the kitchen when I walked into the house. We hadn't been talking much, only strained conversations every now and then. The whole house smelled like burnt citrus and there was something popping on the stove. I liked it when my mother cooked now, because my appetite was diminishing and I didn't get questioned when I refused to eat my mother's food. The idea of eating anything made me feel sick, nevermind whatever hot garbage my mother threw on my plate.

I wished it was my dad instead of my mom. Because even though I was just as mad at him as I was at her, it was so much easier to be around my dad. He never fought back or instigated arguments. He didn't have the same fire in him that my mother and I did. And I guess he always got really tired of that fire, because he was never even home anymore to deal with it. My father just left us here to burn everything down.

She didn't look at me when I walked in but asked, "Where were you?" And I hated the way she talked to me and knew it was the way she always talked to Bear when he was in trouble for something dumb he did.

I collapsed on the couch, feeling exhausted from all the emotions I was forced to feel. "Jacob Black's house," I replied.

"What were you doing at Jacob Black's house?"

"Hanging out with Jacob Black."

"Did he drive you home?"

"No."

"Well, who drove you home?"

"Embry Call."

I didn't want to look at my mother because I didn't want to see her expression and I didn't want to imagine it either so I kept my eyes open and fixated on the dirt on our floor. "Well, are you at least using protection?" my mother asked, and something inside of me snapped.

"What?" I asked, sitting up and looking straight at my mother, who moved around the kitchen like her question was nothing.

She raised her shoulders. "If you're gonna spend all your time with a bunch of different boys, I'd rather not get a grandchild out of it just yet."

My mother always knew from the slump in my shoulders and the dread in my tone when I was already in a bad mood, and that was whenever she decided to rear her ugly head at me. She waited until it looked like I was on the edge of losing it just so she could be the one to nudge me. "What are you implying here?"

She was tense when she spoke again. "You think I don't hear what people are saying about my own daughter? About how they pass you around?"

I thought about crying but I didn't let myself. "How could you say that about me? How could you even think that was true?"

"I'm not surprised by anything anymore," she said breezily, like she wasn't even bothered, "not after finding out you slept with someone right after your own brother's funeral."

There were a million things I could've asked. I could've asked her how she knew or who told her or when she found out but I knew that it didn't even matter because it had solidified an opinion about me that I didn't even know she was forming. And there was only one thing that was clear: my mother hated me. She resented me and she resented that I was her child. "Why don't you just say it?" I asked, voice shaking.

She turned and looked at me, leaving whatever was in her pan to burn. "What do you mean?" she asked, feigning innocence.

I stood from the couch and spat out words at her like they were clumps of burning coal. "Why don't you just come right out and say that you don't love me? You don't have to be so subversive about it. Just spit it out."

My mother rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous, Rosemary," she said, but didn't deny it.

It never used to be this bad. It was always bad, and my mother and I have always fought dirty, but it had never been quite like this. "I hate the way you talk to me. It's like you forget that I'm your kid and you go out of your way to hurt me. It was the way you were with Briah, and I bet that's the reason he killed himself in the woods. So he wouldn't have to be around you anymore," I said, and knew it would be something I could never take back and would always regret. But I was so filled to the brim with exhaustion and rage that I just wanted to be as ruthless as I could.

And it worked, because when the smoke from the pan hit the fire alarm and the house was filled with noise, I turned around and walked out the front door, and my mother didn't say anything. She didn't even move.

Bobby wasn't answering her phone. I had called her three times and she didn't answer and that was so perplexing to me because Bobby lived on her phone. The sun had set and it was raining, gentle and light but my sweatshirt was gonna soak it all up and I wished I had my fucking car. Bobby didn't answer the fourth time, either, so I thought about smashing my phone into the ground and watching the pieces fly off into the street and the woods but instead I called Quil. There was nothing but a dial tone.

I didn't know where I was going but my legs were moving quickly and I thought that if I just kept going like this eventually I would pass out from exhaustion and get eaten by those stupid fucking wolves. I tried Quil again, and again was met with nothing. And I didn't want to talk to Embry, because I was stubborn and still carried the anger I had for him but the rain was starting to come down a little bit harder. I dialed his number out of memory and I pressed my phone to my ear. But he didn't answer either and I wondered if he was finally done with the way I exploded.

I craved the voice of my brother, thinking of the way he would've defended me against my mother and how I would've sat on the floor of his room while he complained about how we should've gotten real parents instead of the vapid impostors we had. My legs carried me all the way to the mouth of a trail. I didn't know how long I had been walking but it was the same trail that brought me to the clearing where I first saw the wolf. I stared down at it, and it stared down at me. It didn't take much thinking for me to make my way down the path.

Taking each step felt instinctual. I knew where I was going without very much thought and I thought of the way I sprinted away from the clearing with heaving breaths and a frantic mind. I wondered if I would've ran if I knew that Bear might have been out there that night while dead leaves and branches crunched under the weight of my feet. The rain was loud against the trees and it was weighing me down but I still would've rather been out here than anywhere near my mother.

The clearing was the same as it was before. It was big and empty with dead grass and a feeling about it that made me uneasy. I sat on the edge, leaning my back against a tree, and watched. It was dark but my eyes adjusted and I could make out the lines of trees and I waited for something. I didn't know what that something was but I hoped it would be Bear and he would run over to me and pick me up in his arms and apologize for disappearing and he would tell me that he loved me and that he would never leave again.

But it was dark and the rain was pounding and my eyes felt heavy and I thought that if I went missing here it would be okay. I closed my eyes, thinking of what it felt like to be warm, and let the rain wash over me.

I didn't know how long I sat there for. But my toes were numb and fingers stiff. The rain eventually slowed, but there was no movement in the clearing. No wolves, no laughter, no Briah. And I thought that someone might call me, someone might ask where I was or where I went. I thought that maybe Embry would show up with his arms open and warm and I would apologize to him and we would move on and be friends again and I would stop getting so mad at him. I thought that my mother would worry about me enough to call someone to look for me. But my phone remained silent as the woods around me, and I stood.

I cried the whole walk home, reminiscing on a time when I didn't care if anyone cared.

* * *


	18. chapter eighteen: the note

I rested my head on Bobby's shoulder, chewing on my cheek and listening to her breath. Bobby was supposed to drive me to school, but my general demeanor resulted in a change of plans, and now we sat on the couch in her living room, realty television providing background noise. The cold of last night was still soaked into my bones and I kept a blanket tight over my body. "Where were you last night?" I asked, hushed.

Bobby hugged me, one arm draped over my body and it was comforting but it didn't have the same warmth that I craved. "I was with Amber. She came over and we talked and she may have committed an act of adultery," she said, and I smiled, "but I would've told her to get the hell out of my house if I had known you needed me. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I said, not recognizing the resignation in my own voice. "It's not your fault."

I stared ahead at the screen and tried to ignore the gaping hole in my chest that made me feel like my whole body was crumbling away. "I wish I could've been there for you, Remy. I'd choose you over an average hookup any day."

"Did you tell anyone about how I lost my virginity?" I asked. I didn't know how my mother knew. The only people I had ever told were Bobby and Kim, and I thought that even if Kim hated me as much as she did, she wouldn't go out of her way to tell my mother about my exploits, not when I could do the same to her.

"No," Bobby replied firmly. "I wouldn't do that to you."

I shifted around, pulling my feet under me and turning to face Bobby. "Well, have you heard any rumors or anything? Like, have people been saying shit about me like, sleeping with anyone?"

There was genuine concern on her face. "No one has the balls to say anything negative about you around me," she said, and with a sigh, I collapsed back into her side. "Why? What happened last night?"

I shook my head, watching skinny blond girls jump into pools in a world that seemed so far away. "Oh, my mom just heard some fun little rumors and now she thinks I'm a whore," I said, like it was nothing, and the weight of the words wasn't banging into the side of my head. "Do you think your parents would mind if I stayed here for a night or two? I don't wanna go back home."

"I don't even think they'd notice," Bobby mumbled, and then said, "but you can stay here as long as you want." I gave her a smile of thanks. "Your mom really said that to you?" Bobby asked after a moment, voice laced with worry and anger.

The thing about my mom and I was that we had this cycle. For months on end, it would be like there was nothing that could come between the two of us, and I really was her little girl. But then that mother-daughter love would fade away, and the annoyance and groundings and fighting would start up again. And then, after weeks of being at each other's throats, my mother and I would just come back together. It happened seamlessly, but the pendulum was swinging to more extremes, and I struggled to see a way my mother and I could recover from this, from what I said. "Yeah, but I also told her it was her fault my brother's dead. So I guess I'm not blameless."

But Bobby was shaking her head. "No. No, Remy. That's not how it should be. You're the kid and she's your mother. You shouldn't be operating on equal levels of maturity. She shouldn't be calling you, her own daughter, a whore because she heard some stupid rumor that's not even true. Your mom should know better. And besides, even if you were sleeping around with every single dude on this reservation, that doesn't make you any less deserving of respect or love. Especially not from your mother."

"That's the worst part about all of this, I'm not even getting any dick. I'd be somewhat worth it if I was," I joked, feeling tired of the way everything was so severe. I knew it was bad if even Bobby was talking to me like a therapist.

She shook her head, my comment bringing her down. "You're too goddamn much, Remy."

I sat on the couch with Bobby for a while, trying to focus on nothing but the stupid show in front of me. Being there on the couch with Bobby made me feel safe, like I was so far away from everything that none of it could touch me. All of my problems seemed like someone else's problems, and the memory of my mother standing in front of the smoke in the kitchen felt as distant to me as whatever mindless shit was playing on the television. But I still felt sick from the compression on my chest and the gaping hole in it. I closed my eyes.

It didn't take long for me to float, drift to places other than Bobby's, thinking of things I couldn't remember when my eyes were open.

When I was thirteen, I had a boyfriend. He wasn't a real boyfriend and we never did anything other than pass each other notes in class and our relationship only lasted a week. It ended on the day that he knocked on my door to come and see me, and Bear answered. Bear was lanky and smirking and he held a bottle of whiskey in his hand. He was fifteen, and he said to my fake boyfriend, "If you wanna hang out with my sister, you gotta take a shot." And when the kid refused, my brother slammed the door in his face, and kept the rest of the bottle for himself.

I picked him up one day while he was too drunk to walk, nevermind drive, and he whooped and hollered from the passenger seat, leaning out the window and cursing at the people who dared to stand on the sidewalk. He grabbed a water bottle from my car and uncapped it, and threw it at a group of cops while we drove by. He ignored me when I begged him to stop.

Briah never yelled at me. He was gentle with me, like I would break. But he did, once, when I walked into his room without knocking and he was struggling with a bag full of sharp needles and little plastic bags of white powder. And I stood there, arms frozen by my side while his face flushed and his eyes narrowed and he screamed. He screamed at me like he screamed at our parents, voice hoarse and it hit me so hard I cried and disappeared into my room and I didn't talk to him for days.

I saw the look on Briah's face when it was covered in blood, how his eyes got excited and he licked the blood of others off his face.

He was in the cafeteria again, throwing punches and laughing. He looked at me and he said, "Remy, I'm doing this for you," in a voice that was not his and the blood was flying so far it splattered on my clothes. I asked him to stop but he kept going, each hit harder and harder and I started crying and begging because I saw Embry's face under his fists, and it was Embry's blood that I was covered in. My legs wouldn't move. I begged Briah to stop but my voice wouldn't carry and a bright, white tooth landed at my feet.

When I woke up, my throat was dry and Bobby was gone from underneath me. Everything felt cold. I stretched out my limbs, moving slowly and awkwardly, trying to think of anything other than that last little dream. The T.V was dark and the house was void of any sound but the humming of a microwave. I followed the noise into the kitchen, where Bobby was sitting at the counter, scrolling through her phone. "How long was I asleep?" I asked with a yawn.

Bobby glanced at me before dropping her eyes back on her phone. "Just a few hours. You looked like you needed it, though. I'm making pizza rolls."

"I think I'm gonna go back to my place and grab some clothes and shit if I'm gonna stay here. Do you mind if I borrow your car?" I asked, the idea of pizza rolls making me feel substantially worse.

She raised an eyebrow at me. "You're not gonna eat?"

"Not hungry."

"Remy, cut the fucking crap. You look like you haven't eaten in days. Just eat a goddamn pizza roll," she snapped, putting her phone down on the counter and leaning towards me.

"I'm not doing it on purpose," I said with a shrug, "all food feels like gross wet clay in my mouth. Makes me sick."

Bobby stood and approached me, taking my face in her hands. "My poor, depressed little angel," she said, and then sighed. "Fine, you can borrow my car. But only if you suck it the fuck up and eat a big ass dinner with me tonight."

The windows were all the way down on my drive back home. I liked the way the wind felt in between my knotted strands of hair, and how it reminded me of the drive to Port Angeles with Bobby. The air smelt fresh and I inhaled it so sharply because I thought that if I got enough of it all the thoughts I couldn't get rid of would be purified and I'd be safe from the image of Embry being beaten to death by my brother.

There were no cars in my driveway, so I pulled in, knowing I had to be quick. I left a little note on the fridge, an aggressive one that told them I'd be saying at Bobby's for a few days and that it was totally my mother's fault. I ended it with a little heart, signed it, 'your only living kid.' It felt fair.

When I steped into my room, it felt charged. Like this was the place where my mother and I's relationship deteriorated and where I spent all my time agonizing over the disappearance of Bear and where I locked myself up to avoid Kim. It was where Embry placed me in my bed and I begged him not to leave. And it felt like so much more than a room but a catalyst for things to go wrong. I moved quickly, throwing random clothes and toiletries. I didn't want to be in there long.

But before I left, I leaned out the window, eyes on the trees, watching and hoping that in the time I stuck my head out Briah would be there. I looked for him everywhere I went, and at this point it felt more like a compulsion. But he wasn't there; he was never there. He was only there that once, and I thought that maybe he would never be close enough for me to see him again. And I had to ask myself if I was okay with just knowing that he was somewhere out there.

I dropped back onto my bed, back hitting the blankets with a thud. There was something poking uncomfortably into my spine, and I shifted around, reaching my hand around until I pulled out my crumbled and tattered journal. It was opened, lying flat on my bed and I wondered how I didn't notice there in the first place. I hadn't thought of my journal recently, not since I knew that it was Embry dragging me around with his stupid little notes. I never followed up on that confrontation with him, and he never told me why he did it. And I figured I would have to be stuck with a lot of dead ends like that.

My thumb traced over the spine, and then I flipped it over to the page it was open on. It was the page on Adlets, the strongest theory I had and the last thing I thought could possibly be true before I got completely lost in everything. But there, at the bottom of the page, was messy handwriting. It was fresh and smudged and made my breathing stop.

You've spent all your time looking up cryptids, but you didn't even think about your own tribes legends.

And I took my journal in my hand and I flung it out the window and I screamed. I didn't know what to do so I screamed and I plunged my fist into the wall and I felt so fucking stupid. It was tribal law not to kill a wolf. The drywall was cracked and I felt dizzy, grabbing my bag and running back down the stairs and into Bobby's car and I pulled out of the driveway in such a way that I thought I might crash her car.

I was so fucking stupid.

My mother never told me about our tribe's legends; cultural pride wasn't her knack and I figured she spent half of her time fantasizing about leaving. But I heard about them in school. They were always apart of our curriculum. We would sit in a circle with our legs crossed while our teachers told us about the brave members of our tribe who defended our lands and our people with the power of a wolf. They were spirit warriors shapeshifters. I remembered the way we used to play, when we were younger, with leaves in our hair like we were the wolves, and it was our job to protect and defend. I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it.

I wasn't thinking anymore. I was just driving, feeling the adrenaline pulsing through my whole body. I didn't know what to feel because I had spent so much of my time trying to figure out what the fuck was going on around here and now that I knew it was so dissatisfying. And I chewed on my lip and pressed down a little harder on the accelerator and wondered if it was even true. I couldn't stomach it. I couldn't think of it and I didn't know what it meant for Bear but I pictured him twisting and morphing into a monster and I was sick once more.

His car was in his driveway and I knocked on his front for three straight minutes and there was no response. And I didn't know where he could've been but it didn't matter. Because I was going to drive around this stupid place for hours until I found him and I was going to get the answers I deserved and he was going to tell me what happened to Briah and I would know once and for all.

Because I knew that he knew, and when I thought about Embry throwing his arm over my shoulder and holding me close to him while he knew what happened to my brother and not telling me I wanted to snap the steering wheel off of Bobby's car. I thought about how much I hated him while I drove and how fucking stupid I was for letting him get close to me just so he could betray me.

He wasn't at Quil's house. He wasn't at Jacob's. And with every place I stopped and I couldn't see him I wanted to rip something to shreds. But I kept my face expressionless and moved onto the next place. I had never been to Sam Uley's house but I remembered where it was. Briah made me drive him there to throw eggs at his windows whenever Sam snitched on him for dealing. I got there quickly, with shaking arms and blurred vision. I didn't knock on the door because I heard their laughter and voices and I knew he was in there and I threw the door open.

They were all there, all the fucking cult boys with their big cult leader. Jacob and Jared and Quil, Big Brother Quil, another betrayer. And all of their heads were turned to me when I stormed into the kitchen and I didn't care that this was the rudest thing I had ever done because I saw Embry right away, feet kicked up on the chair next to him. But when he saw me his face fell and he stood, back straight and eyes wide. "Remy," he said, shocked at my appearance.

And I hated public confrontation but right now I hated Embry more. "I need to talk to you right now," I demanded.

In the room that was just filled with laughter there was just silence. They all seemed to have some general understanding of what was going on, eyes switching between Embry and I. Embry nodded. "Alright, let's go outside."

Embry passed me, not meeting my eyes, but I stood with my feet planted firmly on the ground. I looked at Quil with narrowed eyes. I wanted to open my mouth and cuss him out but when I looked into his eyes, I saw Briah. So I closed my mouth and followed Embry outside without a word.

He stood in the grass across from me, and there was so much agony and shame in his expression but I was past the point of feeling bad for him. I stomped up to him, placing my hands on either side of his shoulders and shoving him. "What the fuck!" I shouted, and he stumbled back. And it made me even more mad because I knew I couldn't knock him over but he just let me push him around. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Remy," he said, hushed and hurt, "can you please give me a chance to explain?"

"Explain what? Explain how you played dumb to trick me into being your friend when you knew what happened to my brother the whole time?"

His voice was tight. "It's not that simple."

"I always knew there was something going on with you guys! And I thought it might be connected to what happened to Bear but I never thought that you and Quil would be so fucked up that you would hide it from me like this! He's one of you and you hid that from me!"

"I wanted to be sure of everything," he started.

But I was on a roll. "Do you even realize how fucked that is Embry? You knew how badly I wanted Bear to be okay and you just exploited that to get close to me."

"You still don't understand anything," Embry said lowly, and it set me off. I raised my fist at him, but before I could swing it, Embry grabbed me by the wrist. I tried to pull it away from him but his grip was tight and he wouldn't let me go. He leaned in close and looked me in the eyes. "Remy, you don't understand. You need to calm down and let me explain."

I stared up at him defiantly. "Fine."

Embry didn't let go of my wrist, but used it to make me follow him away from Sam's house and towards the woods. There was a tiny little trail in his backyard and I stumbled behind him while he maintained a confident stride. "Where are we going?" I asked, voice still sharp.

"I don't need them listening," he said while the leaves provided a shade over us. And he stopped when Sam's house was completely blocked by the leaves and branches, dropping my wrist and turning to face me. "So you know what I am," he stated. It wasn't a question.

"You're a shapeshifter," I spat out, not trying to think about how stupid it sounded coming out of my mouth. "You all are."

His expression was hard. "Right, we are. Everyone in Sam's house right now, we've all wolves. You figured that much out, great, but have you figured out why Briah isn't with us?" he questioned, and I halted, letting that information process in my head. Briah was never with them; Briah disappeared and everyone else stayed. I didn't have an explanation for that. "It's because he's not one of us, Remy."

My head was spinning. "What?"

Embry leaned in close and took my face in his hands the same way Bobby did. "If he was, you would know. Okay? He wouldn't have disappeared," he sighed.

"You weren't lying to me about him?" I asked, face getting hot at the idea of my mislead outburst.

He nodded. "When I said I would help you look for him, I wasn't lying either. That's what me and Quil were doing yesterday; we were looking for Briah." He paused, exhaling heavily. "I didn't want to tell you before I found him. I didn't want to get your hopes up."

I felt faint, lightheaded. I grabbed onto Embry's wrist to stay stable, looking at my feet. "What happened to him?" I asked, voice hushed.

"I don't know. I have a theory, but I can't prove it until I find him," he said, and then raised my face so my eyes met his. "But Remy, I told you I was gonna find him, and I'm gonna keep that promise."

And I wasn't sure why but the anger was leaving my body and it was being replaced by the idea that the boy cupping my face in his hands had the ability to shift into the giant wolf I had seen dancing in between the trees. "I don't feel good," I said, and I pushed Embry's hands away from me to drop to my knees because the weight of everything was just too heavy for me.

He was sitting in front of me in a second, reaching to take my hands in his. "I know this is a lot, Remy. I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you this soon." And then, after a moment, he said, "How did you figure it out?"

My thoughts started moving slowly, piecing things together. "You left the note in my journal."

Embry's features twisted in confusion. "I didn't leave you a note, Remy."

"Well someone did," I asserted. "Someone left a note in my journal and said that I should look for an answer in my own tribe's legends."

Embry's expression became grave. And he was looking beyond me, his frantic eyes the only thing that gave me any insight into how he was feeling. And then he looked down at me with a fierceness in his eyes. "This is too much for you to take in right now, Remy. You should go to Bobby's house tonight, spend some time with your friend and process all of this. We can talk more about it tomorrow, okay?"

I nodded, feeling numb. Embry stood, and he didn't let me get up on my own. He wrapped his arms under me and lifted me up to his chest, carrying me out of the woods. "I have a lot of questions," I said after a while, when we were halfway through Sam's backyard.

"I know," Embry said, his chest rumbling while he spoke to me. "Do you want me to drive you to Bobby's?" he asked, and I nodded.

He placed me down next to Bobby's car, and I handed him the keys before settling into the passenger seat. He told me he would be right back, and then disappeared into Sam's house once more.

I thought I might throw up. Every thought that passed through my head made me sicker and I didn't know whether or not Embry was dangerous but there was a carefulness in the way he carried me that made me think he wasn't. I knew the legends said they were meant to protect us, but I didn't know what from. I thought of the wolf that snarled and snapped at me before I crawled back into my tent and I wondered who it was and who the woman was that laughed like that. It didn't feel real, none of it did, and I felt like my body was somewhere else and I was just floating. I pinched at my thighs and chewed on my cheek but I felt nothing and now that all the anger was gone there was nothing left.

Embry was back after a few minutes, expression tight. And when he got in the car next to me I wanted to ask him everything but I couldn't think of anything to say. He pulled out of Sam's driveway and I settled on, "I'm scared."

Embry looked at me with the same gentle eyes he always gave me. "You don't have to be afraid of me, Remy. I'd never do anything to hurt you. Wolf or not."

"I wish I could be mad at you still," I said, fiddling with my thumbs.

"I thought you would hate me for it," he said, voice husky. "I thought you'd never want to talk to me again."

I thought I would've, too. The idea that I hated Embry passed through my head so quickly and it was gone before it could be solidified. I couldn't stay mad at him for very long. "You'll tell me about it more?"

"Tomorrow," he said. "I'll tell you everything tomorrow. You just," he looked over at me and I felt tiny under his gaze, "you need to rest, take this all in. You look exhausted."

I nodded, looking out to the road. We were almost at Bobby's house. I could see her driveway at the end of the road. "You promise you won't lie to me anymore?" I asked.

"I'm never gonna lie to you again, Remy. Come here," he said, extending his arm towards me and I leaned over the dashboard and into his side. "I'm sorry I ever had to lie to you in the first place. But starting now, that's over."

He pulled into Bobby's driveway, but we both stayed in her car for a moment, listening to each other breath. I didn't want to get out of the car. I didn't want want to leave Embry's side again.


	19. chapter nineteen: the shots

Embry Call sat across from me, slumped against the diner booth. In between us there were plates of food that had gotten cold and an invisible wall of immeasurable tenseness that seemed to prevent either one of us from speaking to each other. My arms were crossed over my chest, staring at the boy across from me. And I think at this point my brain had become totally incapable of any cognitive processing, because I felt totally drained and unable to come up with any meaningful thought. I was shut down.

I had spent the previous night lying awake next to a sleeping and snoring Bobby, eyes fixated on the ceiling above us and mind fixated on nothing. I was blank, unable to sleep but unable to think. I went through the motions all day, waiting for this moment in which I would get to confront Embry and bombard him with questions but now that he was sitting in front of me, I became blank once more.

And I thought this made him skeptical. He stared at me like he was waiting for me to snap, waiting for me to act like myself and erupt. I knew he was afraid to say anything; I could see it from the way he tensed and hunched his shoulders. He was hoping to avoid that trademark Remy Snap of mine. I thought that's why he wanted to talk to me at a diner, somewhere public, so I wouldn't try to hit him again.

The ridiculousness of the situation almost made me laugh, and I thought that maybe I was going clinically insane. I thought that maybe yesterday's hysterics were clouding my judgement and made me susceptible to some elaborate ruse. And now that I was blessed with this clear-sighted calmness that I was never quite capable of before, I could snap out of. I could look at Embry and say to him, alright tell me what's really going on, because I you should know I'm not stupid enough to actually believe you're a shapeshifter. But whenever I thought about saying it out loud, I halted. I had seen too much for me to deny the possibility like that.

I had spent so much time switching between wild conspiracy to wild conspiracy that I never actually stopped to think what I would do if any of them turned out to be true. And now that I was face-to-face with a concept of something so unreal and nightmarish I felt like all that time preparing and researching was useless.

Embry's eyes were expectant and heavy, and I knew I would have to be the one to open this conversation up. "I need you to understand," I said, shifting against the booth and leaning towards Embry, "that if any of this is some sort of joke and you think you can make a fool out of me, hell will rain. Alright? I will ruin your life, mercilessly."

"It's not a joke," he said plainly. "I wouldn't do that to you. What sort of person do you think I am?"

"I don't know, Embry. I thought you were just some harmless dude that liked to follow me around. Now things have changed," I snapped, leaning back against the booth. "And excuse me for thinking that you playing a mean little trick on me is a little bit more plausible than the idea of literal fucking werewolves."

He sighed. "This isn't how I imagined this going."

"If you think your expectations are rattled, try being me right now."

Embry chewed on his cheek the way I do. And then he buried his face in his hands, rubbing his palms against his skin and groaning. "Remy," he said suddenly, sitting up and reaching his hands over to me. I didn't take them. "I know this is a lot, but it's the truth." When I said nothing in response, he offered, "If you want, we can go outside and I can prove it to you."

The thought of Embry turning into something deadly and mythological right in front of my eyes made me sweat. "Maybe later," I said coolly.

There was a softness in his voice when he said, "You're a part of this now, Remy. And I know that it might take some time getting used to the idea, but I'm begging you to keep an open mind here. You've wanted answers for so long, and now you can have them. But you have to trust me, okay?"

I chewed on my cheek and tapped my foot against the ground, trying to focus this nervous energy that was building up. I didn't know if I wanted to believe him or not. "How do you, I mean like, how does this even happen?"

'It's...a protection thing," he started, looking around at everything but me. "When there's a threat nearby, we start to...change. It starts with rage. I would get mad at everything, the smallest things and I constantly wanted to," he trailed off, shaking his head. "And we get a fever, but we're not sick. That's just how we are."

I thought of how warm I got under Embry's arm. "Is that why you're always," I shifted uncomfortably, "hot?"

He nodded. "And then when it happened for the first time, it felt like my skin was being ripped apart and my bones were growing too big for my body. It was agony."

My gut wrenched at the idea of him being stuck in so much pain while he morphed and twisted into something else. "Does it still hurt?" I asked, sounding gentler than before.

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "It got easier, after a while."

I didn't feel like we were talking about reality. I didn't think I would ever be able to really believe in any of this, but even though I kept telling myself how illogical everything was I wanted to know more. "Do you need like, a full moon?"

Embry stared at me for a moment before cracking a smile, and he then he laughed, shoulders shaking. "No, Remy, we don't need a full moon. We're not cartoon characters."

I rolled my eyes. "I don't have very much to go off of here. How do you do it then?"

"You have to get mad, but not like you get mad," he said with a coy little smile, and I frowned at him. "It takes a lot of self-control. We can't go bursting into giant animals in everyday situations, we gotta be discreet about it. Paul used to be really bad about it, though. He had to learn mediation."

"Are you implying I lack self-control?"

Embry smiled at me. "You're gonna try to look me in the eyes and try to tell me you're not even a little bit hotheaded?"

I narrowed my eyes at him. "I liked you better when you were too afraid to talk to me," I mumbled.

"You're handling this a lot better than I thought you would," Embry said, eyes searching my face. "You honestly seem more calm than normal. I thought for sure that you would've, I dunno, stabbed me or something."

I snorted. "It's good to know you think so lowly of me."

Embry's eyes widened. "No, wait, that's not what I meant. I just meant like, it's a pretty wild concept to get used to. Especially since you thought your brother was involved, I don't think I could blame you for having a bad reaction like that. I mean, when Kim found out she ran off screaming, only after punching Jared in the snout."

It shouldn't have, but the realization that Kim knew hit me like a truck. And then I started to piece it all together and it made even more sense than it did before. I thought of that day, the day she came to my house crying, telling me that Jared wasn't what she thought he was. She cried into my shoulder and we drank together and I didn't think anything of it when she said that he was a monster. I swallowed, feeling like there was a rock lodged in my throat. I was starting to believe Embry a little more. "I guess I just still don't feel like any of this is real." I paused, twisting my fingers together. "What's the threat?" I asked after a moment.

"What?"

"You said that it's a protection thing. What are you protecting us against?"

There was a moment of silence before Embry said, "Why don't we go for a walk?"

I paid the bill (after ten minutes of debating, and I hoped Embry learned not to argue with me), and we left, leaving nearly full plates of food on the table. He lead me back to his truck, and I thought that I was spending a lot of time in different people's cars. Embry didn't say anything while he drove, just tapped his fingers against the steering wheel and hummed along to the quite songs on the radio. And the longer he was silent, the more my nerves grew, like they were reproducing.

Embry drove straight towards First Beach, where we first spoke to each other, when he asked me to lay off Jared and I almost bit his head off. It seemed like something that happened years ago, like I was a different person when it happened. At least then, I knew who I was. Embry opened the door for me and held onto my hand to help me out. He didn't let go as we walked down to the sand and it made my palm sweat.

"I don't think I apologized to you enough for the way I let Jared talk to you," Embry said after a moment of silent walking. "I think sometimes I can be kind of spineless."

I kicked the sand while we walked. "It's fine. I already forgive you. And besides, it's not like it's your job to protect me. I can handle that on my own."

Embry looked down at me with a knowing smile. "You don't even know how wrong you are."

His words sent a shiver down my spine and I didn't like the way they made me feel, so I ignored it. "Are you gonna tell me or are you just gonna keep stalling?" I asked, trying to keep my tone light.

Embry let out a heavy breath of air and let go of my hand, turning to face me. "Remy," he said, putting his hands on my shoulders, "I want you to know that you're always gonna be safe. Okay? Like, I don't want you to worry about anything. I'm always gonna make sure you're safe."

The way he talked knotted my stomach up. "Okay."

He dropped his hands and shifted his weight around. "There are...other things, besides us. There's something really dangerous around here, and that's why we all phased."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "And that is?"

"Vampires," Embry said, tone matter-of-fact.

I stared up at him for a moment, eyes wide. And then, when I realized what he was saying to me, I snapped. "Alright, you got me, Embry. Good job," I said, anger boiling up in my throat and coming out as laughter. "You know, you really had me going for a second."

Embry's expression broke, eyes filling up with something painful. "Remy."

I shook my head. "Werewolves, god I was so dumb to buy that. Even for a second. If you wanted to keep the plot-line going, you should've picked something a little bit less ridiculous than a fucking vampire."

"I know it sounds stupid, but would you please just-"

"Was this some sort of revenge plot? Like, did Jared put you up to this? Very clever. Very fucking clever. Convincing me that there was a chance my brother might be alive with some elaborate fantasy plot. Can I ask what the ending was supposed to be, if I bought this? Were you gonna tell me you found my brother and then bring me over to his gravestone? Something really fucking clever like that."

There was this pain on Embry's face that I couldn't make sense of. "I would never do that to you."

"And the details! The details you came up with were so fucking impressive. Where'd you get the lore from?" I felt unhinged, words coming out of me before I could think. "The journal was a nice touch too. I bet that's where you got the idea. Play off my grief. Those stupid ideas I had when I was missing Bear. Who stole it first, you or Jared?"

"It's nothing like that, Remy. I'm not lying to you, I'm not."

I ignored him. "Will you please just tell Jared that he didn't have to exact his revenge on me? Tell him that living the rest of my life without ever knowing why my brother killed himself is enough," I said, a sob caught in my throat. I laughed again. "Fucking vampires."

Embry grabbed onto my wrist. "Remy, would you please just listen to me?"

"No, stop fucking touching me," I snapped, and he dropped my wrist like it burnt him. "Honestly, fuck you, Embry Call. Fuck you for doing this to me."

His voice was tight with something when he said, "I didn't do anything to you."

But I shook my head, eyes brimming with tears, and walked away from him. I was so mad at him but I was more mad at myself. I was stupid to trust him and I was even more stupid for caring about him. Because even now that I knew who he was and what he was doing, it made it even worse.

I raised the shot glass to my lips and dumped the contents down my throat, ignoring the burn of my throat and the hole in my chest. I reached over and grabbed the handle and poured myself another one. Bobby spread out across the thick blanket we had laid out in her backyard, staring up at the sky. "Don't you think you should be going a little bit easier?" she asked, but I wasn't going to listen to her, because she was already on her fifth shot and her eyes were fluttering shut. "You're gonna puke your fucking guts out in the morning."

"Don't care," I said, taking another shot and coughing. "It's Friday."

"Don't you have work?"

"Not till Sunday, and I plan on being drunk every single moment until then."

I didn't know what time it was but the stars were bright in the sky and there wasn't any sound of passing cars and I thought it must've been late enough for everyone to be at home, asleep without worry. I wondered what my parents were doing, because they certainly weren't trying to make any contact with me. It was at least a day since I left that little note on the fridge, a full twenty-four hours, and they didn't even care enough to double check that I was where I said I'd be. I imagined my mother felt grateful I was gone. I pounded back another shot at the thought, wondering what number I was on.

"Jesus fuck," Bobby slurred, "what did Embry fucking do to you?"

I shook my head, looking down at the pattern on the blanket. I wasn't feeling anything but I knew if I tried to stand I would immediately fall over. "He's just a fucking jackass."

Bobby snorted. "I fucking told you. And you were over there getting soft on him. Letting him walk around with his arm over your shoulder like he owned you. I knew he was a dick."

"Well you don't have to be so fucking smug about it," I said, playing with the cap of the handle. "Doesn't matter now anyways. Never talking to that dickhead again."

Bobby propped herself up on her forearms and looked over at me. "Good. I don't know what he did but anyone who fucks with you deserves the death penalty," and then said, quieter, "You've already been through so much."

I thought about what it would be like to be Bobby. To be so pretty people were constantly envious of me, to have a seemingly endless amount of wealth, to have a long list of friends and people who admired me. I thought of all the friends she had and wondered why she chose to keep me close to her. And I didn't think it mattered as long as it wasn't some deep rooted plan to hurt me. It didn't matter if she thought of me as her body guard or just a person to down some shots with, just so long as I wasn't alone. "You're my best friend," I said after a moment, gently swaying with the wind.

"And you're my best friend. That's why I'm gonna fuck up Embry and Kim and Jared and every ugly that ever fucked with you," she said, and I admired how she used the word ugly as a noun more than anything.

I laughed. "You don't have to do that," I said.

"Yeah but I'm gonna."

"You're just drunk," I said, rolling my eyes, "and it doesn't even matter. Revenge wouldn't even be worth it. I just wanna stop thinking about them. Take another shot with me," I said, popping open the handle and pouring one for her and one for me. I pushed it in her direction.

Bobby gently held the shot glass with the tips of her fingers. She raised it towards me, and I clinked her glass with mine. I thought this might have been shot number nine or maybe ten. It started floating to my brain and the burning down my throat made me cough again.

I liked being drunk because I liked feeling like I was floating. When my blood was flooded with alcohol and I couldn't feel my face, I felt like I was somewhere else. I saw the world differently, vision shifted and blurred and there was something different about the way everything felt. I could pour shot after shot of tequila down my throat and the more I drank the more I free I felt. It lit different parts of me on fire, and I became someone who was softer and someone who giggled her way through her sentences. I wasn't Remy Cree when I was drunk. I was who I would be if my brother was alive and my parents loved me and I hadn't been betrayed by almost everyone who had ever spoken to me. It was worth the vomit.

"Do you wanna have another party tomorrow night?" Bobby asked, swishing her hair around behind her. "My parents aren't gonna be home. But who's fucking surprised? They're never home." There was a bitterness in her voice I knew all too well.

"What do they even do?" I asked. Bobby didn't talk about her parents much.

And from the way Bobby groaned it sounded like there was a good reason. "Who fucking knows? My dad's the CEO of fucking some stupid company that sells like, I dunno, pillows or something. I don't even know how he got the job. He was dirt poor with zero experience and then all the sudden he's climbing up the corporate ladder and pretending like he's not some scrawny kid from the res. He's such a fucking sellout," she spat, and reached for the bottle to take a sip straight out of it. "And now, he and my mom spent like, half of their time in some stupid condo in Seattle. They just keep this house cause they like to pretend that they care about their humble beginnings. But they stay away from here as much as they can."

"And they just leave you here?"

"I put up a big fight," Bobby said with a shrug. "I don't wanna live in Seattle, away from the res. I love it here," she said, tone filled to the brim with sincerity and care. "Whatever, though, could be worse."

I grabbed the bottle from Bobby's hand and raised it in the air. "Here's to having shitty fucking parents!" I yelled, and took a large swig.

Bobby collapsed back down on the blanket, hair spread out around her and sharp features glowing in the moonlight. "Did you know," she said, giggling and biting down on her bottom lip, "that there's someone watching us right now?"

My head was full of air and I laughed, losing my breath and I rolled over on my side next to Bobby. "No the fuck there's not," I said, still laughing. "Don't try to scare me."

"No," she whispered, trying to contain her giggles. She leaned in close to me. "Look, they're by the trees."

I couldn't stop laughing. I put my hand over my mouth and said to her. "You're a goddamn liar," I said, but raised my head anyways, looking around Bobby's backyard for any sign of another person. And there he was, standing there like he never left. My heart started racing and all the blood in my body rushed to my head. He stared at us, still and stiff like he did before. Like a ghost. "Bobby," I whispered, "that's Briah."

"What?" she asked, voice up a notch, and she shot up next to me. I heard her breath catch in her throat, like mine did, as we sat shoulder to shoulder, and stared down at my dead brother. "Holy shit," she said, but her voice faded and sounded drowned out.

Time stood still. There was no noise but the beating of my heart in my ears. We didn't move; he didn't move. There was nothing in those moments. It felt like hours, but I knew it was probably just seconds. I held my breath. He looked like my brother, but he didn't. His eyes were black, darker than I remembered. And there was something about his skin, it was smooth and free of the scars that he had on his arms and his face. The clothes he had one were the same ones he had on the last time I saw him, grinning and laughing and I wondered if he kept them on for a full year straight. And now, his face was void of any emotion, any feeling. And before he could move away from me again, I stood and sprinted towards him.

The alcohol hit me heavily, and all the blood that was just in my head dispersed. I stumbled, and immediately lost all of my breath. And the second I stood, he was gone, sinking back into the trees. I could hear Bobby calling for me, but her voice was far away and the sound of my name didn't mean anything to me anymore. I needed to reach him.

The branches hit me hard, like they did the first time I chased after him. I wasn't going to lose him this time, I was determined, legs pumping faster than I thought I could go but still not fast enough, because Briah was out of my line of sight once again. I screamed for him. I screamed his name at the top of my lungs and I lost all the air in my lungs. I didn't know where I was running and I thought about how he only showed up when I was so drunk I couldn't see my feet clearly. I screamed his name again, and I didn't realize I was crying until I choked on my tears.

My lungs were burning and I couldn't get enough air in them. I slowed, coming to a stop, and I screamed, "Why do you keep doing this to me?" into the silence, lost as to whether or not I'd ever get an answer. I screamed again, wordless rage flying out of me and I flung my fist into a nearby tree, the bark shattering my bones and tearing up my knuckles and I felt the pain vibrate through my whole arm.

There was suddenly a pair of hot hands wrapping around my arms and pulling them behind me. I screamed and grunted and tried to pull away from whoever it was but the alcohol was weighing down on me. "Remy, Remy, Remy, calm down. Calm down, okay, I'm not gonna hurt you. Just stop!"

His grip on me lightened and I pushed away from him, stumbling back. I looked up at Jared, whole body burning. "What are you doing out here?" I snapped.

There was something in his eyes so dangerously close to pity. "It's not safe out here," he said softly. "You gotta go back to Bobby's."

"Why the fuck do you care?" I asked, words slurring together and my eyes too heavy to keep open. I just wanted to find my brother and I got the exact opposite. I got the one person that hated my brother the most.

"It doesn't matter. You just can't stay out here."

I was so mad that out of everyone in the world that could've found me in this state, face hot with drunken tears and a broken and swollen hand, it was Jared. "Fuck you," I spat.

Jared sighed, and took a step towards me, grabbing my hand. I winched at the pain. He ran his thumb over my knuckles and shook his head. "This is definitely broken and you gotta go to the hospital. Now, either I can take you, which I know you don't want, or Bobby can take you."

I snatched my hand away from him. "Don't talk to me like I'm a child."

"Then stop acting like a child," he snapped back, and then sighed, like he was trying to calm himself down. "You have to get your hand checked out and you have to get out of the woods."

I balled the hand that wasn't swollen to the size of a tennis ball up into a fist. "Fine, then I'll do it by myself," I said, voice still heavy with tears. I pushed past Jared and started walking away from him.

But he grabbed me by the arm and stopped me. "You're going the wrong way," he said, and then frowned. "Do you want me to get Embry?"

"I'd rather die."

Jared let go and rubbed his face with his hands. "God, you're so stubborn," he said with a heavy exhale of breath. "Come on, we're going back to Bobby's."

He started walking back in the direction I assumed was towards Bobby's house, and I crossed my arms over my chest and thought about just staying there, and waiting for Bear to come back. But I thought he must have been so far gone by now and Bobby was probably crying into the blanket and she was so nice to me when no one else was so I followed Jared back for her. I stayed as far behind him as I could without losing sight of him, crossing my arms and pouting and tripping over roots. I wondered if Briah ran off because Jared was there and that idea was a lot easier to swallow than him running away because he didn't want to talk to me.

When we broke through the trees and landed back in Bobby's yard, she ran up to me, tears in her eyes, and flung her arms around my neck. "I'm so glad you're back! I didn't know what to fucking do. Oh my god, Remy, what the fuck just happened? I thought I was gonna have to call the cops and I knew you'd be mad at me because you hate the cops. Was that really Briah? I missed you," she rambled, arms tight around my neck. And then, Jared coughed, and her hold on me loosened. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she practically snarled at him.

"Remy needs to go to the hospital. Her hand is broken. Can you drive her?" he asked, and then Bobby stepped back from me and stumbled backwards, landing flat on her ass. Jared sighed. "I guess not. Someone wanna give me their keys?"

Bobby's head dropped onto my shoulder and she was snoring lightly, filling up the emergency room waiting area with snores. Jared was on my other side, wearing a sweatshirt he got from the back of Bobby's car that was about eight sizes too small for him, because he wasn't wearing a shirt when he found me.

"You don't have to stay here," I said, the fluorescence of the hospital sobering me up.

"Yes, I do," Jared asserted, staring forward. "I gotta make sure you and Bobby get home after this. Neither of you are in a great state right now."

I rolled my broken hand around on my leg, watching as it puffed up and bled. "I'm not asking this to be a dick," I said, "but why do you suddenly care so much? It's out of character for you. Shouldn't you be calling me like a drunk or something like that?"

Jared shrugged. "I haven't been very fair to you, Remy. I thought I was doing what was best for Kim, and that was the only thing I could think about. I didn't realize how bad it fucked you up in the process," he said, not meeting my gaze. "Embry told me about what you said today."

I tensed. The appearance of Bear had shoved everything else out of my head. I didn't know what to say.

"I realized that I was holding such a strong grudge against your brother that I treated you like shit when you didn't really deserve it. And I didn't realize how much it would affect you and Embry. He was really pissed at me today," he said with a light chuckle, though there was nothing funny about it. "I'm sorry the way I treated you made it so you feel like you can't trust him."

It was my turn to chuckle. "Don't give yourself too much credit. It's not like I was an open book before you came around."

"But you gotta believe Embry. He's not making this shit up. None of us are. And Remy," he said in a serious tone that made me shift my gaze around uncomfortably, "Embry really cares about you. It kills him when you're mad at him. I mean, that kid would do anything for you. Even if I planned some stupid thing to fuck with you, he'd have nothing to do with it."

I tried not to think about the implications of what his words meant. I wasn't totally sober and my head was still reeling from seeing Bear again, and I was still dizzy. Embry's words to me earlier in day where so surreal. "I can't think about that right now," I said, voice hushed.

Jared nodded. "I get it. It's a lot. But you gotta give him a chance."

"And how do I know this isn't an elaborate effort on your part to trick me?"

"Because," Jared said with a sad tone, "I'm kind of tired of Embry hating me. And I think if I got you to give him another chance, we'd be cool again."

And before I could say anything, there was a nurse with tired eyes calling my name. I stood, shrugging Bobby's head off of me. It landed on the chair with a thud, but she kept snoring. "Thanks," I said to Jared.

"I'll be here when you're done," Jared said, throwing a little wave at me.


	20. chapter twenty: the water jug

Me and Bobby didn't talk about last night. We both knew that it happened, the heavy cast on my hand was enough evidence for that. But neither one of us were willing to address the brother-sighting or the semi cordial interaction with Jared, because neither one of us knew what to make of either incident. Instead, Bobby spent the whole day hiding her family valuables in cabinets and closets, and I stayed stationed in her bathroom for the majority of the day, emptying what felt like my entire body into the toilet. The puking lasted late into the afternoon, and I decided my plan to be drunk every moment I was awake wasn't gonna pan out the way I thought it did.

I leaned up against Bobby's counter, munching on whole carrots and thinking about the conversation I had with Jared while Bobby was knocked out on my shoulder. I thought of the way he talked to me, gently, like he cared about my reaction to his words. He picked his words with care and didn't spit them out at me. And I had almost wished he had spoken to me in the brutish and insensitive way he usually did, because the kindness made me inclined to believe him, and if I was inclined to believe Jared, I had to believe Embry.

There were three primary reasons I didn't want to believe Embry, the first being that I didn't think I was capable of acknowledging the existence of not only werewolves but vampires, which sounded dumb even in my head. I didn't know how I was supposed to carry on with life normally if that was true. I thought that I had thought of the most ridiculous and insane things that any person could imagine to be true, but I don't think I would've been able to come up with giant magical wolves protecting our tribes from people who would otherwise suck me dry of all my blood. And I was embarrassed for thinking Bigfoot might be a possibility.

Secondly, if they were telling the truth, and Briah wasn't one of them, that meant he was something else.

And the third reason I didn't want to believe them was because, if Embry was telling the truth, it meant I had to apologize to him. And I would've rather ripped out each of my teeth with rusty pliers than apologize. It seemed easier.

Therefore, I had decided that I would ignore it. True or not, it was none of my business, and I would continue on for as long as I could without having to acknowledge the truth (or therefore lack of). And I would continue to look for Briah, not caring what he was or what happened to him, because I knew he was out there, and I just had to find him, either way.

"I'm gonna go buy my weight in liquor. You want anything?" Bobby said, throwing her purse on the counter and yanking me away from my thoughts.

"Nah," I said, head still throbbing, "I'm not drinking tonight. I'll drive people home if they get too drunk."

"Ugh, so noble," Bobby said, and then smiled at me. "You doing okay?"

"You mean besides the puking and the headache? Yeah, I'm doing fine. I think I lost five pounds."

Bobby rolled her eyes at me. "I meant about last night, idiot. And stop fucking puking, you don't need to lose weight. God, I'm gonna enroll you in like a self-help program for people who can't take care of themselves."

"I'm trying. It's not like I enjoy it. These seven or eight carrots stayed down just fine, so I'm gonna keep going with these," I said, and Bobby still looked at me with wide eyes. "God, I'm fine. Now go get alcohol so I can make fun of drunk people tonight." I was glad Bobby was the one with the fake and not me. I didn't have the stomach stability to drive to the liquor store.

She left with a groan, grabbing her keys off the counter and complaining about how ungrateful I was for her care. For good measure, I told her I loved her while she ran out the door.

When she was gone, car speeding down her driveway, I grabbed the bag of carrots and moved my operation to Bobby's living room couch. If I was going to be hungover, I was going to do so properly: wrapped in fifty blankets with crappy television shows playing in the background, and, of course, with a puke bucket on my side. Just in case.

I wondered what Bobby's parents would do if they walked into their home at that moment, and saw a random girl they had never met with a broken hand, eating their carrots and lounging on their furniture that was probably more expensive than anything I'd ever owned. I tried to figure what was more probable, that happening, or werewolves and vampires existing.

My phone vibrated underneath me. I pulled it out from my pocket to see it was a number I didn't have saved. I answered with narrowed eyes. "Hello?"

"Hey, Remy, it's Jacob."

"Oh. Why?"

His voice was booming, like he was yelling into the phone. In the background, there was shuffling and hushed conversation and the grating sound of metal on metal. "Listen, I was just wondering if you could give me some advice on Bella. I mean, I know you said I should let her make her own mistakes and everything, but she's been spending more time on the res and I was just wondering if I should, I dunno, make a move, before Edward snatches her away."

"Her boyfriend's name is Edward and she still chose him over you?"

"Can you just answer the question?" he asked, exasperated.

"I dunno, maybe?" I replied, biting a huge chunk out of the carrot. "Just feel it out. Maybe it'll be good for you to like, confess your feelings or something. Getting if off your chest might help, but since she literally has a boyfriend you should be prepared for rejection."

"Right, yeah, and she should appreciate the honesty, right?" he asked, voice sounding hopeful.

"Yeah, I guess, but she also might have boundaries set up and you could be crossing them by telling her how you feel when she has a boyfriend. Also she could feel uncomfortable spending time around you if she knows you like her and she doesn't feel the same. There's a lot on the line here, dude, so you gotta be prepared for it going wrong."

"Thanks, Remy, you're the best," he said, and then added, "Oh, um, also you should talk to Embry," like it was an afterthought.

"Don't call me for advice just to give me advice," I snapped.

"I'm just saying."

"Why don't you just worry about Edward?"

"Okay. I'll worry about Edward and you worry about Embry."

"Goodbye, Jacob," I said, and hung up my phone, feeling suddenly irritated. Though I wasn't sure if the irritation was mostly directed at Jacob or myself, but I was tired of constantly being forced to face things.

I thought about what Embry was doing and whether or not he was thinking of me, and it made the hole in my chest expand. And I was starting to realize that the hole in my chest kept growing every time I was away from Embry like this, when I left him on a bad note and whenever I was convinced we would never speak again. And I didn't know when it happened but I started to genuinely care about Embry as a person and I didn't think I had the ability to stop, even though I really fucking wanted to.

But if I was gonna stubbornly avoid what he said to me, I was gonna have to avoid Embry. And that was fine, I supposed, because I was used to suffering and the pain of missing people I couldn't be around.

I fell asleep on the couch, body exhausted from the puking and running and dramatics. It was a quite and dreamless sleep that felt too short, just like a second. And I was violently awoken by the crushing weight of Bobby firmly sitting on my thighs. I grunted at the feeling, but Bobby's eyes were glossy.

"Remy!" she exclaimed, voice airy and sweet, "I just met the love of my life!"

I rubbed my eyes and groaned. "Great," I said through a strained voice.

"She's the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life," she said, voice dreamy. "I mean, besides me. But I don't think I could date someone hotter than me."

"Did you propose?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbows.

Bobby let out a heavy sigh and dropped her head against the couch. "No, but I should've. I invited her tonight but she said no. So I asked for her number and she said no. I've never been rejected before! This is so exciting."

"I'll approve of any girl who can take your ego down a notch. Anyone I know?"

"Yeah, Leah Clearwater, her brother's a freshman," she paused, tilting her head. "Seth I think?"

The thought that Seth Clearwater, the baby-faced man-boy, was definitely a part of the crime-fighting werewolf gang (if it was real), and wondered if Leah knew. "Isn't Leah Clearwater like, twenty?"

"Age is just a number," Bobby said simply.

I laughed. "I'm sorry, wasn't it you who said it was gross for a sixteen year old to sleep with a twenty year old?"

"I did, and I stand by it. But I'm not sixteen. I'm eighteen."

"You're eighteen? But you're a junior?"

"Stayed back a grade. Behavioral issues. I bit a kid."

"Jesus Christ, why didn't I know this?"

"Whatever, it doesn't matter," Bobby said, shaking her head dismissively. "Because me and Leah Clearwater are gonna fall in love and adopt a bunch of babies and our future relationship is totally age appropriate."

"Isn't she straight? I mean, didn't she date Sam Uley for like, years before he left her for that other chick?"

"Doesn't mean she's straight. Even I once dated a guy, back when I was five."

"Yep. Definitely the same thing."

Bobby groaned. "Stop being so pessimistic! You don't know anything about how the sapphic community works."

I lied back down, throwing my arms over the edge of the couch and turning my attention back towards the television. "How's Amber gonna feel about your new wife? I mean, didn't she cheat on Wendy with you?"

"Yeah," she said, stretching out to lie directly on top of me, like a board. I groaned under her weight. "But they're still dating. I don't know how that's gonna go down."

I shook my head as much as I could under the weight of Bobby's head. "Oh, what a tangled web we weave."

It didn't take long after the sun set for Bobby's house to fill up with an inappropriate amount of people. I had never really been at a party and stayed sober for more than about ten minutes, and I was thoroughly enjoying sitting back in one of Bobby's arm chairs with a gallon of water, and watching the people around me. Bobby was running around with hair curled perfectly and sparkly makeup in place, smiling and grinning at the people around her like she was celebrity. I tried to look out for people I knew, but it was mostly nameless faces that I had classes with that I recognized.

And though it was nice to watch people make fools of themselves instead of doing that myself, without the alcohol burning in my veins, I couldn't push unwanted thoughts out of my head. I couldn't stop imagining that Bear was standing in the woods outside, waiting for me to come and catch him. I couldn't stop looking at the people walking through the halls, thinking that Embry might push through crowds with a smile growing on his face at the sight of me. There wasn't anything that allowed me to become carefree, to stop thinking.

Bobby didn't talk to me much. I thought that maybe the love triangle she was involved with was developing, and I didn't wanna follow her around and drag her down all night. So I stayed firm on my armchair, alone and unbothered.

I kicked my feet over the side of the chair and chugged some of the water. The more water I drank, the less like shit I felt. And even though I was feeling astronomically lonely, the idea of talking to any one of the drunk people around me annoyed me.

If the sight and smell of alcohol didn't make me gag, I probably would've downed a bottle out of sheer boredom.

"Hey, Remy."

I twisted around to see Paul Lahote, sitting on the love-seat across from me. I didn't know much about Paul Lahote, other than the fact that he was cult-involved. We had only ever talked once, my freshmen year when we were in a philosophy elective together. We argued over Jacques Derrida for twenty minutes, and never spoke again. In front of me, he was broad and grinning and seemed pleased to be there, but I didn't think his appearance here was a coincidence. "Paul. You here to babysit me?"

"Ha, yeah," he laughed, stretching out and taking up space. "But willingly. I love parties. More specifically, like watching people make an ass of themselves."

"Sure," I said, tapping my almost empty plastic gallon of water against the floor, acting like I wasn't just thinking the same thing.

"What are you drinking?" he asked, eyeing the gallon. "Is that vodka straight? Badass."

"No, it's straight water."

Paul nodded. "Sitting this one out?"

"Considering today I puked until three in the afternoon, yeah, I'm sitting this one out."

"Embry will be glad to hear it," he said, and I pretended not to hear him. But Paul kept pushing it. "I heard you freaked when Em told you about leeches."

I scoffed. "Yeah, because who would believe that?"

"Oh, c'mon," Paul said with a laugh, "you seemed so chill with the concept of giant shapeshifting werewolves but you lose your mind at vamps? If anything they're way more believable. A bunch of pale people drinking blood? Regular humans do that," he paused. "I mean, if they're weird enough."

I frowned. "Do you realize how dumb that sounds?"

He raised his shoulders. "I'm just saying. Maybe there's a reason you believed the werewolf thing so easily but lost it at the vamps."

The image of Bear with skin clear of scars and black eyes was prominent in my head. "Can we not talk about this?" I asked, the topic suddenly making me tired. I didn't want to admit that he had a point, either. "I've decided that I don't care whether it's true or not, I'm ignoring it."

He chuckled. "That's stupid."

"You're stupid," I mumbled back.

"You can't just ignore major events in your life like that. You can't just ignore facts," Paul argued, ignoring my comment.

"Well I'm certainly going to try," I said, straightening up in the chair.

Paul shrugged. "Your efforts are going to be overpowered. Cause like, me and every other dude in the pack are going to actively make sure you're unable to avoid it."

"God, you guys call yourself a pack? That sounds so lame."

And Paul flinched at my words like they offended him. "It's not so lame when we're biting off vampire heads," he said, sounding just a bit defensive.

"Dude, it's kind of hard to ignore the topic when you keep talking about it."

"That's the point."

"Don't you have anything better to do?" I snapped at him. The discussion with Paul was confirming my theory that being lonely was way better than actually having to talk to the wrong person. I didn't like Paul because his attitude made me feel like I was talking to a different version of myself, and dealing with me seemed annoying as hell.

"Well, I should be patrolling, you know, running around to make sure that no one's coming out here to kill you, but Embry switched with me. Said he wanted to make sure you were okay but didn't wanna smother you," he said smugly, grinning at me like I was supposed to swoon at his words.

"How sweet," I mumbled, not looking up at Paul.

"You don't have to be mean about it, you know. Embry's done a lot to make sure you're okay. The least you can do is appreciate it," he said, and it was the most sincere thing he had said to me this whole conversation.

"Well, why did he tell me anyways? Like, why is this any of my business?"

"Cause you're his girl," Paul said simply with a shrug.

My face flushed with heat. "I'm not Embry's girl. I'm not anyone's girl."

"Uh, yeah you kinda are," he said, like I was stupid, "You shouldn't be so upset. You could do worse."

My shoulders slouched. "Whatever."

Paul stood, and looked down at me when he said, "You're his girl, and you really fucking broke his heart yesterday. Whatever, though. Since you're not drinking, I'm gonna leave. I'll be outside if you need anything."

He left without another word, disappearing into the crowd of people, and leaving me to feel like shit about myself.

I always felt like this before I spoke to Embry, stomach knotted and head light. And even though I tried to suck in as much air as I could fit in my lungs, I always felt like it wasn't enough.

I had gone to bed early, while the party was still going on and there were dozens of people yelling and drinking below me. And it wasn't because of them that I couldn't sleep, but my conversation with Paul. And I kept sitting up to look at myself in Bobby's mirror and thinking, I broke Embry Call's heart. I didn't know what happened and I couldn't understand what was going on. The truth felt so mangled, and I figured that it was all my fault.

I didn't know why I had snapped at him the way I did. I didn't know why I couldn't just listen to him but I thought about how different Briah's eyes looked and I thought that it might have been easier if he was dead instead of deadly. I thought of Briah's eyes and then Embry's eyes when I called him a liar and how they were filled to the brim with this agony that I couldn't understand. I didn't know why I acted the way I did towards him but I also couldn't figure out I didn't have the ability to stay away from him or even stop thinking about him. I didn't know how I got myself into this situation and I didn't see any way to get out of it.

It was headache inducing and mind-boggling to me, because I had never been involved in anything before Embry Call decided he would be a part of my life. But now I was all tangled up in everything and kicking and scratching my way out of it wasn't working.

My hand was shaking as it rose to his front door, but I knocked still. I thought that maybe he wouldn't be home and that I should've come before my shift. I inhaled and counted to three before exhaling, and repeated that process four times over before the door was open and Embry was standing in front of me again.

There were heavy bags under his eyes and he looked so run down and exhausted and it was so different from the last time I saw him just two days ago. "Remy," he said, sounding shocked and breathless.

"I need you to be quiet because I'm going to say a lot of things at once and if I don't I'll forget them. So just like, wait until I'm done before you say anything, okay?" I rushed, saying the words I had rehearsed so quickly they came out jumbled and clustered and I hoped he understood me.

Embry nodded, eyes wide.

I inhaled sharply. "Right, so I'm sorry, for a lot of things. I'm sorry that I constantly lash out at you when you're very clearly just trying to be a good friend to me. I'm sorry I'm constantly angry and difficult and drunk and it's a lot to deal with. I honestly don't even know why you do deal with it, because if I were you I would've been done with me like, a super long time ago. I'm sorry I'm always pushing you away for no good reason. I'm sorry I keep going back and forth on you. I'm sorry I accused you of doing something really fucked up because I didn't want to believe that you could be telling me the truth. I'm sorry I thought you were lying to me and I'm sorry that I'm mean. I don't know if I can ever stop being awful, but I think you deserve for me to at least try," I finished, and let out a heavy breath.

My heart was beating heavily in my ears and I couldn't look up at him. And when I thought of what I had missed, I added on, "And also, I like, rarely apologize to anyone, ever. Especially if I'm in the wrong. So, yeah. You're just, um, important, I guess."

For a moment, he didn't say anything. And I didn't look up at him or say anything because I had lost all the courage I had built up and that unbearable feeling of nervousness was taking over. And he didn't say anything for so long that I thought he wasn't going to forgive me, and I almost turned to walk away. But as soon as that thought entered my mind, his arms were around my waist and my feet weren't touching the ground. I didn't think, I just wrapped my arms tightly around his neck and tried to pull him closer to me.

"You're important to me too, Remy," he said, face pressed into my hair. "More than you know."

He dropped me back down on my feet and I stepped back. My thoughts were scrambled. "It's still, like, a lot. And I think I need time to get like, used to the concept of everything."

Embry rested a hand on my cheek. "Whatever you need, Remy."

I leaned into his touch. "Oh, and I'm sorry I called you a dickhead."

"When did you call me a dickhead?"

"To Bobby. A couple times."

He chuckled. "I forgive you for that too."


	21. chapter twenty-one: the family

Bella Swan was spending a lot of time on the reservation lately. Embry wasn't really surprised to see her there, sitting in the corner while Jake worked on some cheap piece of scrap metal that was probably never going to run again. Jacob always kept trying, though, he always had to distract himself with something. And it wasn't really that Embry minded her presence (besides that reeking smell of bleach she was coated in), and he even semi-affectionately dubbed her "vampire-girl." But Bella asked a lot of questions.

"Jacob told me you imprinted," she said to Embry, while they were both sitting idle, watching Jacob pretend he was gonna be able to fix the bikes Remy had convinced him to destroy.

"Yeah."

There was a brief lull in conversation, in which Jacob cursed at the metal and kicked a tool that went flying into the opposite wall. Bella flinched at the sound, and watched Jacob with careful eyes before turning to Embry and asking, "Can you tell me what it's like?"

"Imprinting?"

"Yeah."

Embry let out a heavy breath. He had never really tried to explain it before; it was just a feeling that felt so natural and right to him, he didn't know how to put it into words. ''It's...scary as hell. I never used to think about Remy but now it's like, everything I do, it's all for her. Now she's all I think about. The way I feel about her is so overwhelming. I used to think it was a bad thing, that I wouldn't be myself if I ever imprinted, but when I'm with Remy I feel more like myself than I ever have before. She's just...she's like air. I couldn't live without her. I'd die for her without a second thought."

"That's intense," Bella said after a moment, looking contemplative. And then, she offered Embry a smile. "What's she like? Is she nice?"

Jacob barked out a laugh at the question, but Embry continued on. "No, Remy's not nice. I mean, that sounds bad, but she's just so, raw. A little unapproachable. Remy doesn't like many people; she's pretty particular, I guess. She's tough as hell, too. But she's a really good friend to the people she cares about."

"I like Remy," Jacob interjected, grinning up at the two of them. "She's the most fun imprint. Totally unpredictable. I'm stoked to see all the ways she drives Embry absolutely insane."

Bella smiled, but looked between the both of them like there was something she was missing. "How'd she react when you told her?"

The question made Embry flush. "Yeah, I kinda haven't told her yet. I don't really know how I'm supposed to bring that up, and I definitely don't think she'd like the idea very much."

"Doesn't the imprint go both ways? Shouldn't she be happy?" Bella asked, and then after a moment she said, "I mean, it eliminates any confusion. And she doesn't have to worry about finding someone who's right for her."

"Um, no. I don't think Remy would be happy about it, and I don't think she was even looking for 'the right person.' She doesn't like being told what to do, so I don't think she'd be cool with a magical and unbreakable bond that connects her to me for the rest of her life," Embry paused, knotting his hands together. He had spent a lot of time trying to imagine how telling Remy about the imprint would go. He came up with about a dozen different scenarios, and none of them were very pleasant. "I think I would genuinely rather take on fifty leeches at once than tell Remy I imprinted on her."

Jacob scoffed. "Stop being a wimp. What's the worst that could happen?"

"She could tell me she hates me and wants nothing to do with me and then leave me forever, and that is a fate worse than death."

Jacob turned to Bella, waving a wrench around for emphasis. "See, this is why I hate imprinting. Everyone's a melodramatic simp." He shifted towards Embry. "And besides, hasn't Remy hated you like four different times by now?"

Embry flinched. "Don't remind me."

"I'm just saying, even if it goes wrong, she'll get over it. You're too perfect for her for her to ignore you forever."

Embry sighed, leaning back into the garage wall and frowning. He didn't want to think about what it would be like if Jacob was wrong.

The sound of Quil's car fighting against the dirt made him perk up, though, because the arrival of Quil meant the arrival of Remy. There was this weird feeling of jealousy Embry got at the idea that Quil got to drop Remy off at work and then pick her up a few hours later, and even worse towards Bobby, who gave her rides to school and back, now that they were basically living together. And he knew he could just ask Quil if he wanted him to do it, if Quil wanted to save on gas and time, but he had this sort of crippling fear of being around Remy too much. He worried about overwhelming her.

She came into his line of sight giggling, and his heart felt full, on the brink of bursting. Remy always looked kind of messy, walking around in sweatshirts that feel halfway down her thighs and old pairs of jeans that hung loosely around her legs. She had to roll them up at her ankles so she wouldn't be stepping on them with her old sneakers that were covered in dirt and a suspicious rusted-colored stain.

Remy waved when she saw Embry, smile playing on her lips and he felt awe-struck. Remy leaned against the side of the garage door and proudly declared, "Quil's pissed."

And before he could ask why, Quil was storming into the garage. "Remy's a dumbass," he said simply, next to his cousin. His expression lightened when he saw Bella, who he always had a not-so-secret soft spot for. "Oh, hey Bella," he said, sounding gentler. The girl gave him a small wave, but her eyes were on Remy.

"I'm not a dumbass," Remy said with an eye roll. "I'm just fun. I'm a fun guy with fun ideas."

Embry didn't think a lot of the ideas Remy thought were fun were necessarily the best ideas. He looked at Remy with an expectant expression. "What did you do?"

"Well, me and Bobby got back from classes yesterday, and we were doing homework when her pen exploded. And then, I got this idea, from all the ink that was everywhere-"

"She gave herself a fucking tattoo," Quil interrupted, voice dripping with annoyance.

"What?"

"It's not that bad," Remy defended.

"No, it's that bad. It's really bad," Quil insisted. "And it's like, three-hundred percent gonna get infected."

Jacob looked towards Bella, grinning. "See what I mean? Totally unpredictable. Super fun."

Quil looked like he was about to explode. Quil had kind of assigned himself the role of Remy's older brother, since it was fairly clear how desperately she missed Briah. And even though Quil really did love her like a sister, he had told Embry many times that loving Remy was exhausting. "It's not fun. She could die from an infection because she used a sewing needle to poke ink in her skin like five-hundred times," Quil said, and Embry thought he might pass out at the idea.

Remy crossed her arms and mumbled, "I think it's pretty fun."

"I'm hiring a babysitter to watch you and Bobby."

"Can I see?" Embry asked, head spinning.

At his request, Remy grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled it up past her hip and Embry felt his face heat up. And at first, he didn't even notice the tattoo. He was distracted over the fact that this was the most of Remy's skin he had seen (besides when she wore Bobby's shirt, and even though that night he was overwhelmed with worry, he didn't forget how she looked in that shirt). That only lasted a moment, though, because right on Remy's hip, there was a shaky and poorly proportioned kitchen knife. And it wasn't just the kitchen knife. There was a sickly green bruise that had spread around it, and scabbed, dried blood that covered it.

"Holy shit," Jacob said laughing.

"It's cute," Remy insisted, tugging her sweatshirt back down.

"Remy, it's all bruised and scabbed," Embry reminded her, worried that she had forgotten about that part.

"Well, yeah," she said easily, sauntering towards him and sitting by his side, "I stabbed myself with a needle for like, forty-minutes. My skin's not just gonna be cool with that. Doesn't mean it's infected."

Embry sighed, rubbing his face with his hands. "You're gonna give me an aneurysm."

"Yeah, but do you like it?"

The worry in her voice made him smile. "It's very cute."

Quil pointed a finger at Embry. "You give in too easily."

He ignored Quil. "Oh, Remy, this is Bella Swan. Bella, this is Remy Cree."

"Hey," Bella said, giving Remy a small smile and wave. "It's nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you from Jake and Embry."

And Embry couldn't explain it, but Bella's words made Remy's face twist, like Bella said something Remy didn't like at all. Embry recognized that look on her; it was sour. And Remy just said to Bella, "Alright," before turning her head away from the Forks girl.

Embry knew better than to push it.

He reached over and grabbed Remy's cast, bringing it into his lap and gently turning it around. "I can't believe you broke your hand punching a tree."

"I can't believe you can't believe it."

"I mean, a broken hand and a tattoo all in one week? Can you spread out the destructive decision making a little further apart?"

Remy laughed. It was a sound that made Embry feel warm. "I wouldn't call it decision making. There's really not enough thought involved for them to be considered conscious decisions."

"Will you come with me to Sam's house tonight?" he asked suddenly. "Emily's making dinner for the pa-, I mean, for all the guys. I really want you to come."

"I dunno," Remy said, biting down on her lip. "I feel like I'm not exactly the most liked person in that group of people."

Embry placed his arm over her. "Come on, it'll be fun. Everyone'll love you. I promise you'll have a good time."

Remy couldn't make herself look more uncomfortable if she tried.

Embry kept watching her pushing around little bits of her potatoes and occasionally nibbling on a boiled carrot. Quil noticed this, and whenever he thought no one was looking, he kept shoving his own vegetables onto Remy's plate. Embry figured she wasn't used to being around this many people, nevermind being in such close proximity to Jared, who made her life hell, and Sam, who made her brother's life hell. She kept chewing on her cheek, eyes darting all over the room. And suddenly he felt bad for inviting her.

"How's your food?" Embry asked over the booming conversation that went on between everyone else at the table.

"Very homey," she said with vegetables in her mouth, "I imagine this is what the food at my house would taste like if my parents developed basic skills all adults should have."

"Hey, Remy," Seth suddenly called from across the table, halting all general conversation, "can I sign your cast?"

Remy frowned, giving him a look of false sympathy and waving her cast around. She said, "Sorry, no space."

Seth blinked. "The cast is blank."

"There's just no space, kid."

Quil rolled his eyes. "You're such a snob, Remy. Sam, toss me a marker."

Embry watched with a look of delight as everyone passed around a permanent marker, taking their turns writing out their names in giant letters. Remy kept her hand in the middle of the table, looking horrified as Sam took the marker and wrote out his name in careful penmanship, his name looking smaller than everyone else's. Even Jared signed, his named adorned with a smiley face. Jacob, Seth, and Quil argued over the space on the top of the cast, the most coveted spot, and the whole time everyone's attention was fixated on Remy's right hand, she was using her left one to tightly grip Embry's fingers.

Remy relaxed after her hand was passed around, and as plates were cleared and dishes thrown in the sink, she engaged more with the people around her. And Embry was content to watch, smile on his face while she talked to Emily about cooking and baking and asked for help in the kitchen because Remy claimed she desperately needed it. She joined in on the relentless teasing of Jacob that everyone liked to take part of, and did so with a smile on her face. And when Leah popped in, looking grumpy and tired, Remy perked up, rushing over to talk to the older girl as soon as she could. And that was something that was particularly shocking to Embry, because Remy barely wanted to talk to anyone, nevermind Leah, the least friendly person he had ever met.

Although, after some thought, he figured he could kind of see the appeal. But Leah brushed off Remy pretty easily, though, and disappeared further into the house with Emily.

The most interesting conversation, though, was a spirited and extremely confusing debate between Remy and Paul, something that Paul had called unfinished business.

"The theory of deconstruction is literally the most essential asset in any form of meaningful analysis and Derrida is a genius. And like, I get that you don't actually ever wanna think about things too deeply and Plato says that's okay, but you get a pretty shallow understanding of life that way," Remy said, volume of her voice rising to almost a shout. Her face was flushed and her eyes were narrowed at Paul and Embry thought that if he was Paul he would've just shut up and agreed.

But Paul just scoffed, staring at Remy from across the table with an equal intensity. "I'm sorry, you expect me to believe some French asshole over Plato? The true essence of any text is the only thing that matters in analysis and Derrida focuses on the appearance of an idea over the essence, which even sounds wrong."

"Yeah, maybe if you have the cognitive processing skills of a two-year old," Remy replied readily.

Paul leaned back in his seat. "Tell it to Plato."

"Plato is a bitch and so are you."

"The only reason you like deconstruction is cause Derrida used Nietzsche's criticism of Platonism."

"Yeah, and he was right to do so. Nietzsche is brilliant and Plato didn't wipe his ass."

Jacob looked back and forth between the two of them with a blank expression. "I'm sorry, what the hell is going on?"

Embry, with his arm over Remy's shoulders like it always was, grinned. "Remy's really good at philosophy and is absolutely smoking Paul in a debate right now."

"I'm just impressed Paul knows this many words," Sam said, gently nudging Paul.

Then Seth, features scrunched up, asked, "Wasn't Nietzsche a Nazi?" and unknowingly started another twenty minute debate.

Though the debate was intense, and there were several points in which Embry was convinced Remy and Paul were just starting to make things up, it was more than Embry could've asked for to see his imprint so comfortable around the rest of the pack. She was close by his side, under his arm and his protection and Embry felt like he had worked so hard just for the simplicity of the moment. He was beyond content, and the moment was perfect.

And then Kim walked through the door.

Sam had spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best ways to get the entire pack to stop talking at once, but as soon as he shut down one conversation, another one started up. But if he really wanted everyone to shut up on the spot, the best way to do it would've been to put Kim Conweller and Remy Cree in the same room together.

Embry tightened his arm over Remy, while Kim stared her down with intense eyes. "Can I talk to you?" she asked, voice cutting through the silence.

Wordlessly, Remy nodded, and looked at Embry with a pair of sad eyes. "I'll be right back," she said to him, and then shrugged his arm off of her to follow Kim out the door.

The room was motionless and silent for about five seconds after the door slammed shut, and then, as if they were all operating on the same brain cell, every single one of them rushed to the windows facing the backyard to try and see what was happening between the two imprintees.

"Can anyone hear them?" Seth asked, with his face pressed against the window.

"No," Jared replied, shaking his head. "Kim's playing music off her phone. Probably knew we'd be listening. God, she's so smart."

Embry watched Remy. He paid attention to the way her shoulders slumped and her round eyes were wide open and eyebrows raised, like she was annoyed. While Kim talked, Remy shifted her weight around and kept crossing and uncrossing her arms. Embry watched as Remy's muscles relaxed, and the details in her face softened at something Kim said. Remy wasn't saying much.

Sam's voice came from behind them. "You guys don't have to be so immature," he said, though there was no commanding tone to his words. They all stayed still. "Jared, Embry, you're really gonna stand there and try to invade on their privacy like that?"

Embry turned towards his alpha. "Yeah, I have to make sure nothing bad happens."

"Yeah," Jared agreed, "like Remy trying to start a fight."

Embry shot daggers at Jared, jaw tensed, and then Paul said, "I've got ten on Remy."

"I want in on that," Jacob said, eyes fixated on the scene outside the window.

"No way," Seth said lightly, with a chuckle, "Remy's right hand is broken. That's one less hand to fight with."

Quil scoffed at the younger boy's words. "I'm sorry have you met Remy? I would bet against Kim if Remy had no hands."

"Yeah, and she could swing that thing around like a weapon. It's pretty solid," Jacob agreed.

"Would you guys shut up?" Jared snapped, briefly taking his eyes away from the scene that was unfolding before them.

"It's not my fault Embry has a tank of an imprint," Paul mumbled.

"I still think Kim could put up a pretty decent fight. And besides, Remy looks all twiggy and tired."

Embry growled, placing his hand on Seth's shoulder and shoving him backwards. "Seth, I'll kill you right now." But Seth was right. Remy did look tired, and her limbs looked toned, but thinner than Kim's. Embry thought of the small amount she ate during dinner, feeling uneasy.

"They're not gonna fight," Sam called from the other room.

"Are you kidding?" Paul asked incredulously. "Did you not just see Remy almost rip my head off because I disagreed with her over a philosopher?"

"Yeah, and one time Kim didn't talk to me for three days because I lost her favorite pen," Quil said, and then added, "Honestly, it's kind of a miracle that they were even friends in the first place. And for so long too."

Jared sounded as annoyed as Embry felt. "Well you shouldn't have taken her fucking pen, Quil."

"And Remy isn't some brute, Paul. You're just annoying as hell. I wanna rip your head off sometimes."

"Do it then, lover-boy!" Paul challenged, grinning.

"What are you guys doing?"

Leah's voice made them all jump back, and they were forced to face an annoyed looking Leah and a disappointed Emily, standing side-by-side with crossed arms. If Embry wasn't so distracted, he would've been impressed that those two were even standing that close to each other. Leah usually put a lot of effort into avoiding any sort of discussion with Emily.

"Betting on who's imprint would win in a fight," Jacob explained.

"It'd be Jared's."

"It'd be Embry's."

Leah rolled her eyes. "You guys are pathetic."

"They're coming back!" Seth said, eyes still pressed against the window.

Embry barely got back in his seat by the time the door was swinging open, and Kim rushed over to Jared. She grabbed his hand and yanked him up, not saying a word to anyone, and then rushed right back out the door, shoulder nearly grazing Remy as she entered. Embry's eyes were wide.

Remy smiled at him, ignoring the stares of everyone around her. "Wanna go for a walk?"

"What'd you and Kim talk about?" Embry asked as the two of them walked along the shore. He kept his hand next to hers, lowering himself just a little so their hands would occasionally brush. Embry really wanted her to grab it. He was always leaning into her, holding her and taking her hand in his. He just wanted her to want him, this time.

Remy smiled up at him. The sun was setting and its light hit her face in such a wonderful way."Oh, that? I thought you guys were listening."

Embry flushed. "Music drowned out your voices," he said honestly.

"Hmmm." Remy's eyes studied his face before she continued. "She apologized for prioritizing her relationship over her friendship with me and for saying things to hurt me. I apologized for getting mad at her over Jared's actions and for threatening her. We talked about why everything happened the way it did, and then she asked if we could go back to being friends."

"That's great!"

"I said no."

Embry did a double take. "What? Why?"

"I dunno. There's only so much that can happen between two people before a line has to be drawn. We both went too far, and it's kinda hard to come back from something like that. I mean, how am I supposed to go back to hanging out with Kim when she insulted Bear just to hurt me? How is she gonna tolerate me when I told her I'd punch her teeth out and I meant it? Not to mention, Bobby's my best friend now, and historically, those two don't really mesh well together."

"So you guys are just done? Never being friends again?" Embry asked. He was thinking of the look on Remy's face the first time they had ever hung out together, when Kim showed up and snapped at her, saying the worst things she would have thought of. He remembered thinking that if Remy never spoke to Kim again, he wouldn't have blamed her.

Remy shrugged. "I mean, I'll be nice to her, if she's around. But I'm not gonna go out of my way to spend any time with her. And it sucks, but I guess that just kinda happens sometimes."

"At least you have me and Bobby. I mean, especially me, but Bobby's good, too I guess."

Remy stopped and looked up at Embry with a toothy smile, eyes squinted in the sun. Her smile made his heart stop. Remy was beautiful, but it was a special kind of beauty. It was something unique and striking, and it hit him hard every time he looked at her. And he was so entranced in her smile he almost didn't notice when her phone started ringing.

She gave Embry an apologetic look before answering. "Hello?" she answered, sounding annoyed at the interruption.

And Embry didn't mean to listen. He wanted to give Remy her privacy, like he failed to do earlier in the day. But the voice on the other end of the line was loud. He figured he would be able to hear it clearly even if he didn't have the enhanced hearing. "Your father didn't want me to call. He said I should let you have some space, but Rosemary, this is ridiculous. I'm your mother and you need to come home. I don't know why you think you can just run off, but I'm tired of-"

And while the voice was rambling, Remy rolled her eyes. She cut her off with a quick, "Okay, bye, love you,"and not only hung up, but shut her phone off. She looked back towards Embry. "Hear any of that?"

Remy's home situation made him nervous. Embry didn't have a lot to go off of, but he knew that it was bad enough for Remy to feel like she had to escape to Bobby's, and that was enough for him to worry. "When's the last time you went home?" he asked, trying to keep any anger out of his tone.

"Couple days ago. I just got a bunch of stuff and left. I dunno. It's too much to be there right now."

"What happened?"

Remy started walking again, dragging her feet in the sand and moving slowly. "My mom has some less than favorable opinions about me. Heard some rumors, now she thinks she can just say really shitty things about me and I should just sit there and take it, cause I guess in her mind you have kids to mindlessly berate them. Gonna stay at Bobby's for a bit, or at least until her parents kick me out," she explained, like it was so simple, like there was nothing to it.

"You could always stay with me," Embry offered almost a little too quickly. "I mean, if things don't work out at home, or with Bobby."

She sounded a little bit sadder when she said, "I don't think your mom likes me very much either."

"I think she would, if you gave her time. Who could hate you?"

"The list is long."

"Okay, give me the list and I'll fight everyone on it."

Remy laughed. "You seem to have convinced yourself that I lack the ability to defend or take care of myself."

"I can't help it," Embry said, and he thought that Remy couldn't even begin to imagine the lengths he would go to to make sure she was safe. "I feel pretty protective towards you, if you hadn't noticed. And I dunno, I guess that's the kinda person I always had to be. Man of the house, and everything."

It was then that Remy reached over and grabbed Embry's hand. His heart was out of control at the contact. "It must have been hard, growing up without a dad," Remy said, voice hushed.

"It's harder not knowing who he is," Embry said, squeezing her hand. "My mom knows. She just won't tell me. And it's hard to think that I could be Quil or Jake's brother. It would mean I'm some product of adultery. That a man I admired growing up did something pretty fucked up. That's why I kinda hope it's Sam's dad. He's already awful."

Remy was silent for a moment. "What an awful guessing game you're forced to play."

"It's gotta be one of them, though. My mom's from a different tribe, but I still got the wolf gene." Embry tended to get caught up in the speculating, always stuck wondering who his mother was hiding from him. And he thought that if his mother didn't tell him, she wasn't telling him for a reason; he knew if he wanted to find the reason out.

"Does she not know?" Remy asked, and Embry shook his head. "I get why she's so worried now."

Embry looked down at Remy, but her eyes were drawn to the sand beneath her. "I have to sneak out and stay out all night for patrols. And there's this...situation with Bella Swan that we have to keep an eye out for."

Remy tensed at the name. "You guys sure do a lot to protect Bella Swan," she grumbled.

"She attracts a lot of danger," Embry explained simply.

But Remy frowned. "Quil said he thinks Bella Swan's pretty hot."

Her words made him frown, trying to figure out how that was relevant. "Um, yeah I guess Quil always had kind of a crush on her."

And even though her head was faced down, Embry could still see the hints of a blush creep up her neck and towards her cheeks. "Do you think she's pretty?" Remy asked in such a quite and grumbled voice that Embry had to strain to hear her.

But when the words hit him, he grinned. Remy was jealous. "Well, she's definitely not as pretty as you," he said gently, enjoying watching the redness spread on her face. Remy was usually so guarded and unbothered, but her embarrassment was adorable.

"So why does Bella Swan attract danger?" she asked, shifting the conversation when she was satisfied.

Embry realized how much he had yet to explain to Remy. "Remember when Jake told you about Bella and her boyfriend?" Remy nodded. "Well, her boyfriend's one of them. Y'know, a vamp," he said, feeling nervous about discussing anything supernatural with Remy. But she didn't react to his words, so he kept going. "He's part of like, a whole pack of leeches. And I guess, when their kind dates a human, it turns heads in the tick world. This one guy tried to kill Bella, I guess, and they killed that guy. Now that guy's girlfriend is trying to track down Bella."

"Jesus," Remy mumbled, "talk about bad taste in men."

He smiled. "Yeah, those are some pretty severe consequences just to date an undead guy."

"Isn't she afraid they'd like, eat her, or something?"

"The Cullens are different from other leeches. I mean, they're still leeches, but they don't feed off humans. They hunt animals. We have this treaty with them. If they stay like that, not harming any humans, and stay off our land, we won't kill 'em."

Remy tightened her grip on his hand. "What are they like?"

"Vampires?" she nodded. "They're creepy. Creepy as hell. They don't age. Their skin is hard, like marble, and really, really cold. Most of them have red eyes, but the Cullens have like, weird yellow eyes. Sometimes, their eyes are black. And we found out from Bella that some of them can do like, extra weird shit. Like one of them can see the future, Bella's boyfriend can read minds. There's one really creepy one that can like, control emotions."

Embry felt Remy shudder. "I don't care for that."

He chuckled. "No one does."

"What do I do if I see one?" Remy asked, leaning in closer to him.

"Scream like hell, until one of us hears you" he said, "but you don't have to worry about that. I wouldn't let a leech get near you. Not a goddamn chance."

And he didn't think Remy felt comforted by that, and he thought he knew exactly why.


	22. chapter twenty-two: the fire

Embry liked to play with the ends of my hair. When my head was resting up against his chest and I was listening to his heartbeat, he twirled his finger around the thick strands that had fallen from my ponytail. The sand found itself in our socks and the waves reached up to kiss the tips of our shoes.

"So the Cullen's can't kill any human?" I asked, looking out into the ocean. The idea of the family had been lingering in my thoughts for a while. I wondered what they looked like and what their skin felt like and what it would feel like to be around one of them. And as much as I couldn't understand Embry and the wolf boys, I couldn't understand them more. I had a lot of questions and even more than that, a strong resentment in my gut I couldn't explain away.

"Nope," he replied easily.

I titled my head. "Not even one?"

"Not even one."

I snorted. "Well, that's kind of dumb."

"What?"

"I just mean, what if killing someone is in the best public interest?"

Embry briefly pulled away to give me a look. "Could you explain to me how could killing a person be in the best public interest?"

"Okay, hear me out," I said, sitting up and shifting to face him. He had a bemused expression, eyes squinted in the sun and smile gentle. I wanted to pinch his cheeks. "Let's say that there's like, a serial killer loose. And, hypothetically, he got off on a technicality. So he's still out there killing and the law can't get him. He's really just there running free, killing anyone he can get his hands on. If one of the Cullen's killed him, would you still consider it a treaty violation?"

He pursed his lips and leaned back on his elbow. "I mean, yeah, I think so."

"That's stupid," I argued. "They could be like superheroes."

"I don't think it's stupid. It's not their place to interfere with human life." And then, as an afterthought, he added, "And besides, if that highly unrealistic situation were to ever happen, we would put a stop to it. And probably without killing anyone, I think. Aren't I superhero enough for you?"

I furrowed my brow. "Can werewolves be superheroes?"

Embry leaned forward. "I'm actually not technically a werewolf. I'm a shapeshifter. Shapeshifting is a superpower. Like that guy."

"Right," I said with a grin. "That one guy."

"So you don't need vigilante vampires," Embry said with a tone of finality and I wondered if he ever would learn that he would never win an argument with me.

"I still think there's a situation they could kill someone for the greater good," I said, feeling stuck on the subject. "Like, if I got kidnapped by a serial killer and he was slowly torturing me to death, you wouldn't want one of them to stop it?"

Embry rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into his chest again. "I wouldn't let anyone get even close enough to hurt you. Duh."

"Let's say you're asleep."

"I would wake up."

"Okay, then both of your legs and both of your arms are broken."

"I have accelerated healing on my side."

"Well, in this hypothetical. You're doing something really far away."

"I run fast," he insisted.

"Alright," I said with a groan, "if you're gonna be difficult, then in this exact scenario, you lost all your limbs. They got cut off and now you're just a head and a torso. They're not gonna grow back. And then I'm in Seattle and some serial killer throws me onto a boat. We are ten miles away from any land. There is one Cullen there. Would it be a treaty violation then?"

He was silent for a few moments, tensed and not moving expect for the rise and fall of his chest. "This isn't a fun thought experiment for me. I don't like imagining scenarios that I can't protect you," Embry said voice sounding strained.

"Is someone like, paying you to ensure my safety or something?" I half-joked.

"Seeing you safe is payment enough in itself," he said, his words laced with a sincerity that I couldn't understand. Embry talked like that all the time; his voice would dip into some emotion that felt like it was just out of my grasp, so far away from me.

I scoffed. "You talk like a poorly scripted teen drama."

"You talk like Paul Rudd in _Clueless_ ," Embry mumbled, gently flicking my nose with a flush under his cheeks.

"What?"

Embry rolled his eyes at me. "You know _Clueless_. Don't act like you don't know _Clueless_."

"Why do you know _Clueless_?" I asked, laughing.

The redness under his cheeks was spreading. "What, I'm not allowed to like lighthearted nineties chick flicks? I can't have a sensitive side?"

"I mean, you are. I guess I just would've assumed you'd pick a better movie."

"Like what?"

"I dunno," I said with a shrug. "Like, _American Beauty._ "

Embry laughed. It was one of those heavy laughs that echoed off the rocks and made me smile. "God, you're such a hipster. ' _My name's Remy and I don't like feel-good movies. I only like weird culty films about depression. I hate joy.'_ ' The voice he used to mock me was high-pitched and squeaky and he sounded like a chew toy.

"Oh, I'm sorry that I like things that are good," I said, voice defiant.

"Good doesn't always mean enjoyable. And bad things can sometimes be enjoyable."

"Only if you have bad taste."

There was the sound of rubber tires rumbling against the gravel from behind us and Embry groaned, dropping his head on my shoulder. "Speaking of bad taste."

I turned to see Bobby's car pulling into the little parking lot behind us. I gently hit Embry's shoulder. "Don't be mean," I scolded, "I'd be homeless without Bobby."

"Um, no, you would not," he said, jerking his head up and frowning at me. "You absolute drama queen."

"Hey, jackass!" she called at Embry, head popped out of her car window with a heavy, impatient frown on her face. "It's six. I get custody now."

"You better go with her," Embry said, standing and offering me his hand, "I can't afford to bring her into court right now."

Things had been like that recently. My time was almost exclusively split between the two of them, and the whole not having a car or parents thing led them both to this weird unspoken agreement to share me, to make sure I was safe and that I got where I needed to go and I had everything I needed.

Bobby slammed the driver's side door while my seatbelt clicked. Her hands were tense on the wheel and eyes fixed. When she drove, she didn't say anything to me. And I knew that this wasn't a sudden tenseness due to the growth of Embry's friendship with me (though she did express her disapproval, over and over again, for about twenty minutes at a time). The cause for the flicker of annoyance in her eyes and the clenching and unclenching of her jaw was not anything I had done, but the simple fact that her parents were home.

They arrived at her house late the night before, when Bobby and I were eating a makeshift cheese plate and watching a documentary on the death of JonBenét Ramsey. Her parents walked into the home, loud and bustling, with heavy shopping bags and echoing complaints. When I first saw her mother, with the same long black hair, full lips and entrancing eyes as her daughter, I understood where Bobby got her beauty. And when I saw her dad, phone pressed to his ear and greeting his daughter with nothing but a half-hearted wave, I knew where Bobby got her attitude problem from.

While her mother dotted over her and me and asked questions to distract from her disappearing father, Bobby's whole demeanor changed. There was something sour in her face and in her words and that sourness was rotting and becoming unbearable and I thought that maybe Bobby was the only person alive who hated her parents more than I hated mine.

"Alright, we need to have a talk," she said suddenly, while her car was halfway back to her house.

I threw her a grin. "Did you steal someone else's girlfriend again?"

"No," she said, tone sharp and serious, something that felt foreign in Bobby's voice. "It's about Embry."

Her words made me tilt my head and frown. She didn't care for him, and talking about him usually involved empty threats and monetary bribes for me to stop talking to him. Bobby thought I let him in my life too easily. She thought he should've had to work harder for me to give him the time of day. But Bobby didn't know the things I knew. "Oh?"

"You gotta cut the guy loose," she explained, voice hard.

"What are you talking about?"

Bobby let out a heavy sigh and tapped her fingers against the wheel. Her eyes were flickering across the road like she was looking for the right words to say. It wasn't like her. Bobby always had at least ten different things to say on deck. "Normally, I don't care about men or their feelings. But Remy," she shot me a pleading look, "that boy is so hopelessly in love with you it's almost painful to watch. Like, it's all over his face whenever he looks at you."

I snickered. "That's stupid."

"No, it's really not," Bobby asserted, leaning forward in her seat. "You can't tell because you're so totally wrapped up in age-appropriate angst that you don't even notice the way he watches you. And it's not just some little crush he's got on you. Embry is so in love with you it like, oozes from him." Bobby paused, and I watched the way she breathed, slowly and controlled. "I've never seen anything like it. He'd jump in front of a bullet for you," she said, voice quieter than before.

"Me and Embry are just friends. He knows that," I asserted, feeling uncomfortable in my seat and in my skin. I didn't like the implication of her words and I didn't like what they could've meant in any context.

Bobby's tone was lighter when she said, "I actually refuse to believe that you're so dumb that you wouldn't notice it."

"So what, you're saying that it's better for me to just totally cut him out of my life?" I snapped, discomfort growing. "That I should stop talking to him because you have some weird theory that's probably not even true?"

"No, Remy, I'm saying that you're leading him on," she explained to me slowly. People had been talking to me like that a lot, words stressed like I was too stupid to comprehend them. "When you hold his hand it doesn't mean anything to you, but to him it's hope. And I'm telling you this because you're my best friend and I care about you, so I gotta hold you accountable. It's really fucked up to keep leading him on when you know you don't feel the same way about him." She paused, looking at me with accusing eyes and raised eyebrows. "Unless, of course, you do feel the same, and you just haven't told me about it."

We were pulling into her driveway and I couldn't wait to be anywhere else, talking about anything but this. "Don't be stupid."

"Fine," she said simply. "Then cut him off. Let him know it's not gonna happen and that he should give up hope instead of dangling him along like this. It's cruel." Bobby parked her car and yanked the keys out of the ignition but sat still, looking at me with expectant eyes.

"Are you sure you're not just misdirecting your annoyance at your parents being back?" I shot back, hand on the door handle but staying still.

Bobby shrugged. "Doesn't matter if I am or if I'm not. I'm still right."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever." I pushed open her door and stomped towards the front door and Bobby threw a 'love you,' my way as I marched towards her front door.

The Chinese takeout hung off the edge of my fork and I wondered if Bobby's mom genuinely thought the Styrofoam box full of lo mien would pass off as her own cooking. But I wasn't about to complain because the noodles were the first thing I had eaten in months that tasted like food and not like the dust building up on my life. I sat with the half empty container on my lap, watching the news from Bobby's bedroom floor, feeling both full and starved.

Bobby was on her bed, legs kicking in the air and she she rambled on over the phone, talking to someone about what a bastard her dad is and how spineless her mother was and I was thinking that maybe if my dad married her mom we might get a half-functioning pair of adults.

I shoved another forkful of noodles into my mouth and as the newscaster droned on about the unprecedented death toll in Seattle. There was something so unbearably unsettling about a pretty blonde lady with pretty blue eyes, groomed and pampered, standing in front of yellow tape and a large and lumpy blue bag. I had to swallow the food whole because I thought if I kept chewing I might've thrown up my food. There were so many dead, countless bodies and the thought of it made an emptiness spread throughout my gut. Those numbers on a screen weren't just unprecedented statistics, they represented the number of families wrecked by loss. I wondered how many of them would end up like my family. Torn up into pieces without hope of ever being glued back together.

Loosing someone is something indescribable. It is heavy and gripping and contorting. When they showed me Briah's bones and told me he was dead, I didn't go numb. Everything inside of me was just so overwhelmed and unequipped for that type of pain that I became nothing. And the grief would sometimes take a hold of me, punching holes in me and twisting me around and shaking me. I would sit there, thinking over and over that it was simply not true, and that there was nothing that would keep me and my brother apart. And I didn't think I ever got past that point, of holding onto hope that I would get my brother back, that I would get to return to the person I was before I lost him. That hope never went away, just dwindled.

And I looked at the numbers on the screen and wondered how many families would get to have their hope reignited like me.

When I brought another forkful to my mouth, I thought of my brother with different eyes than before, and suddenly the food was no longer food, but dust once more.

Bobby's laughter pulled me from my thoughts, loud and like a bell. I shook my head, closing the container of lo mein. She didn't look in my direction when I stood and walked out of her bedroom door. I didn't blame her. She had her own thing going on.

The rest of the house was inexplicably empty again. And everything was in its place, decorative apples in their bowl and blankets folded neatly over the backs of arm chairs and couches. It was like no one lived here, like every room was always ready to be shown off to potential buyers. There was no disarray to make it feel like home.

My legs were shaking as I put the leftovers I knew I wouldn't eat in the fridge, stomach making concerning noises. I knew I shouldn't have pushed it but I forgot what it was like to enjoy the taste of something and I wondered if I would ever know when enough is enough. If I would ever know when to quit. Bobby's words still hung heavy in my head.

And I thought that, even if her words were true, I wouldn't do anything about it. Because no matter how much of a bad or selfish person it made me, I needed Embry to find out what happened to Briah. And that would always be my number one priority.

The house was so silent that for a moment, I doubted if I was there.

Bobby wasn't on the phone by the time I climbed back up to her room. She was rolled up in her blankets, and the news was no longer playing on the television. "Can you believe we're done with classes next week?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, plopping down next to her on her bed. "We are? Isn't it still April?"

"No," she said with a snort, flipping through channels and landing on reruns of bad dating shows with a too high budget. "It's literally May. Like mid-May, you fucking dumbass."

With a heavy groan, I slumped against her body. "Fuck," I complained. I didn't like school, but I liked the excuse to be anywhere but home. Summers were a nightmare in which I was stuck at home, sticky and unhappy, with nowhere to go. And I didn't know if the ending of classes meant the ending of my little living arrangement with Bobby, but I didn't want to think about it.

Bobby patted the top of my head. "There, there," she said, not sounding remotely comforting, "I'm sure one day you'll learn to keep track of the days like a big girl. Anyways," she said, moving on from my grief, "do you wanna go with me to some Forks party in June? My friend just asked if I wanted to go. I guess it's like a huge deal and the family's like, super rich and they never let anyone up there. And like, I'm not missing out on that."

"Will I be able to get so drink I piss in their backyard?" I asked, feeling slightly bitter that I had to sit out the last party.

"We'll bring a keg."

"Fine."

I groaned again, still baffled at my lack of awareness. And my phone buzzed. At first I thought it was Bobby, as people tended to prefer to talk to her, but when she pulled out her phone and saw no new messages, I checked. It was from Embry, and the message made me laugh. "Oh my god, you're gonna kill him," I said standing.

"What'd Embryo do now?" Bobby asked, watching me as I moved towards her window and flung it open. "Oh, god," she said, eyes widened in realization. "Tell me he's not..."

Embry stood in Bobby's yard with a grin on his face. "What are you doing?" I yelled down to him, giggling.

"I have a surprise," he called back at me, smiling broadly. And he extended his arms up towards me. "You trust me?"

Bobby was by my side in a second, leaning out the window with a horrified expression. She looked back and forth between the two of us. "Hell no. No way. No fucking way. Just go out the front fucking door, if you're gonna go. No one's gonna stop you."

I shrugged, leaning away from the window. "It seems kinda fun," I said, despite her clear disapproval. "Plus, if he doesn't catch me and I break my leg then you'll get to sign the cast first this time," I bargained, remembering how furious Bobby had been to see the cast on my hand covered in signatures from the wolf boys, including Jared, leaving no room for her delicate print.

But as I leaned back towards the window, Bobby grabbed my wrist. "Remy," she said, voice and eyes severe, "you're gonna break his fucking heart if you keep this shit up."

And even though her words hit my gut in a way that made me unsure, I rolled my eyes and put one leg out the window, and then another, and then I jumped.

Embry's hand was tight around mine as we walked towards the large group of people roasting hot dogs a fire that looked like it was on the verge of being out of control. And even though he spent a lot of his time telling me that I was welcome in this group of people, my stomach still flipped around and my throat felt dry whenever I was around Jared Cameron and I held onto Embry's hand just a little bit tighter. The warmth was reassuring. Because no matter how much things had changed, the upheaval Jared did on my life and my brother's would never be undone.

Kim was there too, sitting tight against Jared's side. When she saw me, the corners of her mouth turned upwards and she raised her hand in a gentle wave. I did the same, but my hand was shaking and I wondered how people could think I was brave.

Embry tugged on my hand, drawing my attention back to him. His features were tied up with concern. "Are you okay?" he asked, and I nodded. "You know, we can just leave. I mean, I'd probably get in trouble," he said after a moment of thought, "but I mean, I'd still do it. We could go watch a movie or find some people you don't like to beat up."

Despite my nerves, I smiled. "Nah, I think I'm good." I didn't want to tell him that he was the only reason I felt like I could be there."

"There's something important I have to tell you," Embry said, tone shifted. "But I really think you should listen to the tribal legends first. It might give you...a different understanding of how things are."

I frowned. "You know I've already heard them, right?"

"Yeah, and you asked me if I need a full moon to transform. I wouldn't exactly consider you an expert," he said, teasing, but I kept frowning at him. "Seriously, though. I'm not always the best at explaining everything. This might help."

My stomach twisted in knots at the idea of whatever important thing he had to tell me. "I feel like there's only so much information you can unload on me. I mean, how much more is there I don't know?"

Embry shrugged. "Not much, I guess. It's just...details, I guess."

"I can't believe everyone here turns into a giant dog," I said, changing the subject as my eyes scanned over the people in attendance. "Well, almost everyone."

I wasn't particularly happy to see Bella Swan there, sitting next to Jacob, looking around nervously like she felt she didn't belong. And it wasn't that I disliked Bella (whatever weird and inexplicable jealousy I felt when I first met her had faded away, and now I kinda felt bad for my rude introduction), but more that she was an outsider. I barely understood why I was allowed in on it, and I was born into the tribe. And add her outsider status with the fact that she was dating one of the 'leeches,' as Embry so affectionately called them, and her presence just felt like an intrusion.

"I can't think of a cooler thing to turn into," Embry said, leading me to sit with him on a log, in between Paul and Quil. "Except maybe like, an ant or something. You know, like that guy."

"Yeah," I agreed, smiling up at him as I sat. "Like that guy."

Embry's arm was tight around my shoulder the second we sat down, and, from my left, Quil grinned at me, turning his hot dog stick around in his hand. "Hey Remy. Do anything stupid since the last time I saw you this morning?"

"Nothing crazy. Just entered Embry in a dog fight and bet six-thousand on him," I replied, thinking that between the heat from the fire and from Embry I would start sweating soon. I felt like even the iciest parts of me would start melting soon.

"And I'm gonna kick ass," Embry said, leaning over to grin at Quil. "If you want in on it you only have to give Remy your entire net worth."

I nodded. "It's worth it, though. I mean, since your net worth is twenty-six dollars your cut won't be that big, but still."

Quil frowned. "Embry, isn't it gonna be embarrassing for you to lose against a shih tzu and cost Remy all of her probably stolen money?"

"Oh, my bad, Quil. I didn't realize I'd be fighting against you."

I laughed as Quil reached over and shoved Embry's shoulder. "Yeah, I fucking wish."

Embry smiled down at me, ignoring the commotion around him. "Want a hot dog? Not to brag but I'm uhh, pretty much the best at making hot dogs over the fire."

"Cause it requires so much skill," Paul chided over Embry's shoulder. And he gave me a look of false sympathy. "Go easy on him. He's not used to using more than three of his brain cells."

Ignoring Paul, I leaned my head against Embry's shoulder. "Nah, I'm good. Bobby's mom ordered takeout and pretended it was her cooking. I'm filled to the brim with noodle." I leaned back up, grinning at him. "I will take like, twenty s'mores though."

I liked the way he smiled at me and immediately went to work at marshmallow toasting. I liked the way he was always smiling at me. There was something different about it, something that felt genuine, unlike anything I had ever felt before. And I wondered what I did to deserve such a pure smile.

Embry was really bad at toasting marshmallows. He got distracted too easily, laughing so hard he didn't notice when the fire consumed the little ball of sugar at the end of his stick. They would catch fire and burn and melt off the edge. And it's not like I was helping. I would poke his side and lean into him and tease him and he would forget about what he was doing until I pointed out that he had lost another marshmallow to the flames. And by the time Billy Black started talking, I had only gotten one s'mores instead of my promised twenty.

And when the storytelling began, there was a silence that spread through the group. The air was thick with some sort of respect, a pride that everyone felt when Billy opened his mouth to talk about our tribe. I had heard the stories before. We all had. But there was a certain authority with which Billy spoke that commanded the attention of the people around him. I felt like it was the first time hearing the histories. And I supposed it was different to hear them and to know that they were true; to know that they lived on.

There was something so much more entrancing about hearing them told by Billy. It was so starkly different from hearing it told in schools, from hearing it told in simplified ways for simple young minds. From the way he spoke, it was like his voice was dripping with a pride I never experienced growing up. As the story went on, I found myself growing distant from the moment and getting caught up in a resentment towards my mother. I wondered what it was like to grow up like Jacob, with a parent who was proud of who they were.

Billy spoke of our ancestors and I imagined what it was like to be there before everything became a secret. Embry was still next to me, face calm and eyes fixated, but I did not forget the look on his face when I doubted him, called him a liar.

I didn't know how long he talked for before I realized how tight my arms were wrapped around Embry's waist. It was around when Billy's voice faded out and Old Quil started speaking. I realized that there was a shift. There was a new topic, a new point of discussion. I went stiff when I realized what they were talking about.

There was this sense of anger and betrayal that ran through me while Old Quil described the cold and bloodthirsty monsters that plagued our tribe. It felt different than the anger I was used to. That was hot and blinding and hot in my skin. This was cool and painful and wedged its way into my heart. And it was so sudden and so tense that I couldn't make sense of it. When Old Quil spoke of the limp and lifeless bodies found on our land, I was plagued by thoughts and images of my brother. I tried to blink away but couldn't. I squeezed Embry tighter as the anger built its way up my throat and formed into fat tears in my eyes. I closed my eyes, and they never fell.

The Third Wife haunted me after my eyes closed. I tried to imagine plunging a knife into my own heart to save anyone at all. What would I do, knife in my hand, if familiar hands were working to tear Embry to pieces?

It wasn't over quick enough.

When it ended, and people felt like they could move once more, I kept my eyes closed and my head against Embry's shoulder. I heard him use me an excuse to leave, taking my limb body into his arms and carrying me away from the scene. I felt each step he took, and let my head hang over his arms. Embry opened the door to his truck with me in his arms easily, placing me gently into the seat before closing the door. And when he came around to the other side and slid into the driver's seat, he started the car without a word.

After a while of driving, the truck stopped suddenly and Embry said, "You're safe now. You don't have to pretend to be asleep."

"I'm not pretending," I said, keeping my eyes closed. "I'm really asleep, I swear."

Embry chuckled. "You must be tired. I'm sorry I kept you out so late."

"Don't worry about it. It's better than drinking vodka until four in the morning."

He frowned at my words. "How'd you like it?" he asked, but I figured he already knew the answer.

I opened my eyes, rubbing them and slowly sitting up. It took me a minute to realize that we were just parked in the middle of the road, surrounded by nothing but darkness and trees. "I dunno," I said with a yawn. "I guess I kinda got caught up in the story." It was a half-lie. It wasn't the story at face value that wound me up, it was what the story made me think of. "It's different to hear them when you know they're true, I guess."

"I remember the first time I heard them after I first phased," he said, gaze somewhere else. "It made everything seem so much clearer."

"Old Quil was definitely better at explaining it than you were," I gently teased with a small smile.

Embry looked at me with skeptical eyes. He leaned back against the door and sighed, biting on his lip. "I don't know how to tell you this. I thought the legends would make it easier."

"Tell me what?" I asked, sounding softer than before. The legends were so enthralling I had forgotten about his worrying, 'we need to talk,' statement.

He shifted uncomfortable around in his seat. "I think you already know," he said, almost like a whisper. The calmness he usually held in his features were so twisted and before I could think about it I reached over and grabbed his hand in mine.

I stared at him with expectant eyes. "What are you talking about Embry?"

"Remy," he started, voice heavy and avoided my gaze when he said, "we found your brother."

I went numb, instantly. My eyes were no longer seeing and I couldn't feel Embry's skin against mine and my mind couldn't produce any thoughts or any feelings. "When?" I asked, only able to come up with questions.

"Earlier tonight" he explained, no emotion in his voice. "Paul and Sam caught a scent up north and followed up and found, um, well they found Briah. They recognized him immediately and tried to follow him, but they lost him after a while. Think he swam off."

Everything was moving so slowly. Embry's words hit me long after he spoke them, one at a time. "So, he's...is he..." I couldn't finish my sentence. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton.

And I knew the answer but I looked at Embry for him to finish. For him to confirm what I already knew. "Yeah. He's a vampire."

I wasn't shocked. I wasn't feeling anything and I couldn't even bring myself to be happy at the confirmation that my brother was alive because I didn't even know if that counted. I couldn't look at Embry or anywhere but down at my hands. Ever since he told me, I wouldn't let myself have the thought. I couldn't imagine it, I wouldn't let myself. But now it was the truth and I didn't have to imagine it. "So what now?"

"I don't know," Embry said, voice hushed.

"They showed us his bones," I said suddenly. "They dug up his bones from the woods and they said it was him. Whose bones were they? If they're not my brother's whose are they? Whose bones did my family cry over?"

There was a strain in Embry's voice when he said, "I don't know, Remy. It could've been someone he," he started, but never finished. But it didn't matter because I was already imagining my father crying over the bones of someone my brother killed.

I thought of the stiff way he stood at the edge of the woods and how black his eyes were. "He's killed people," I stated. It wasn't a question but Embry nodded anyways and instead of sadness or relief there was a rush of panic that gripped my chest. "You're gonna kill him," I said slowly, but then the words hit me, hard and fast and knocked the breath right out of me. "You're gonna kill him. You're gonna kill Bear. You're gonna kill my brother. Oh my god, oh my god. Embry."

My chest was crumbling away and my hands and legs and everything was shaking. But when Embry reached over and pulled me into his arms and into his lap and held me tight against him I felt like he was holding me in one piece and he said, "No." His voice was firm and certain. "No, Remy, I wouldn't let that happen. I wouldn't let that happen to you. No, you're not gonna lose your brother twice."

No matter how much air I gulped up I felt like I could not breathe well enough. I couldn't string together any thought but, "Please don't. Please, please, please."

Embry leaned forward and placed a kiss on the top of my head. "No one's gonna hurt Briah. No one. I promise. You're not gonna lose your bother again. You're gonna get him back. You're gonna have your brother again."

"How?" I choked out.

I felt him shake his head. "I don't know."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u for all the comments i love them sm pls keep em coming they give me serotonin


	23. chapter twenty-three: the knife

Bobby was mad at me.

It wasn't the type of mad that lasted just twenty minutes, the type of mad that made her pout and cross her arms and stomp off. This was a type of mad that left her straight faced and stoic, mouth in a hard line and looking straight ahead like I wasn't there. She was frigid.

And I almost didn't notice.

While she drove us to school in the morning, I leaned my forehead against the window and watched the trees pass by, searching. My mind was so wrapped up and tangled in the idea of the truth that I didn't notice the way she huffed or how tired her eyes looked or even the fact that she hadn't said a word to me the entire morning. I was in the trees, running between branches and searching for Briah and calling for his name and she was sitting next to the lifeless version of me, wondering when I would realize that this was the longest she had been silent.

My thumbs were moving quickly over my phone, not even pretending to care about whatever biology work I was supposed to be doing. Bobby already did it. Bobby always did the lab work. My phone buzzed. His smell was pretty strong. We won't miss it again. I twisted around in my chair to look at Embry, eyes narrowed and features scrunched in confusion. He looked too big for his chair, hands dangling below the desk, holding his own phone. He shrugged at me, and I whipped back around.

again? you mean you've missed it before?

I mean, the scent was familiar. But no one ever knew it was him.

oh my god.

But now we know.

It took me a while, after Embry confirmed suspicions I already had, to regain my composure and have the ability to do literally anything at all. But once I did, I was bombarding him with questions. I was completely desperate for any sort of answers, any information that he might have had.

"You know, you could like, at least pretend to be interested in maintaining a friendship with me?" Bobby said suddenly, voice low, like a whisper. Like she wasn't sure if she wanted me to hear it or not. But I did, and it ripped my attention away from my phone and from Embry and from my brother and made my head spin.

"What are you talking about?" I asked, confusion genuine.

Bobby rolled her eyes towards me, big and bruised. I realized then, while she was looking at me with a tired, make-up free face and a snarl in her lips, that Bobby Evans was really fucking mad at me. "Look, I know you're wrapped up in something right now, because you're always going through something. Like, oh my god I've never met someone so prone to constant conflict. And I always try to be there for you whenever you're having a hard time, which is, like I said, literally always, but have you thought that maybe I need you to be there for me from time to time?" The way she spoke was so jagged and raw. It stung more than screams would and felt displaced.

"I," I started, shaking my head, "I didn't know something was going on? You could've just told me?"

"Maybe if you hadn't been so busy leading Embry on for attention than you would've noticed," Bobby snapped, voice rising and eyes widening for just a moment before she breathed, regaining her composure. "Look, that was harsh. I'm sorry," she said, gently, soothing, "but I've done a lot for you. I let you stay with me when things got hard with your parents and I drive you around everywhere and I talk you through all of your problems and now my parents are back and they're giving me a hard time and it's really fucking me up. Like, I need you to be my friend right now."

She was right and I stared her down knowing that there was no way I could escape this situation and I didn't want to make it worse but I didn't know what to say. I just looked at her and hoped something would come to me but all I could think about was how fucked up it was of me to just ignore her when I was living in her house. "I didn't realize-"

"Because you haven't been paying attention."

"Look, I'm sorry," I said with a sigh, leaning in towards her. "Can I make it up to you somehow?" I asked, but she just crossed her arms and turned her head away from me. "I can," I started, and then retreated. "I work early on Saturday but after we can like, have a day that's just us? I mean, we could go to Seattle or Portland and talk and shop and eat a lot of food and you can dress me up in skirts and stuff that."

I had never tried so hard to win Bobby over. It was just like, one day she was just in my life, and that was it. She was there every day since then with thick pouted lips and words of comfort slated and ready. Pleading felt so out of place for me. I wondered if I would do this with Kim. And she looked at me with softer eyes and said, "Well, it's a start."

"Have your parents really been that bad?" I asked, shifting around in my seat. "I know your dad was kind of acting like a dick but your mom seemed nice enough. I mean, at least it kind of seemed like she was trying, but-"

"They wanna sell the house," Bobby cut me off, and her words made me fall back into her seat. "My dad says it's not economical to keep the house when they barely spend any time there. So they wanna sell it and pull me out of here so I can finish school in Seattle."

My heart was beating in my throat as my phone buzzed in my hands and I thought that maybe if everything just happened one at a time, one after the other, I would be able to have some sort of grip on reality. But everything just stacked on top of each other and I thought I might never get a chance to catch my breath. "You can't go," I stated. It was a fact, it was simple. Bobby couldn't leave. And I would not let her leave.

But she just shrugged. "My dad's pretty dead set on it. I'm trying to get him to wait until I at least graduate. The jury's out on that one, though. I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

I bit down on my lip. "What if-"

"I'm not killing my dad just so we can stay in the house."

"That wasn't gonna be my suggestion, but I'm actually pretty proud that you've considered it," I said with a slight smile. "What I was gonna say is, what if we lived together?" I suggested, and Bobby looked at me with wide eyes. "We both hate our parents. I have a decent amount of money saved up from work. You're rich. Maybe we could get like, an apartment or lease out some place. I dunno."

She hummed, pursing her lips. "I think we might be too young to like, buy a place. But I think maybe we could like, keep it as a backup idea if nothing else works out." She paused, tapping her fingers against the desk before adding, "Besides, I don't think it'll get to that point. When it comes to arguing with my parents, I can be pretty persuasive."

My phone buzzed in my hands once more. I frowned at Bobby and said to her, "Yeah, I fucking hope so."

"So what's been up with you?" Bobby asked, shifting the conversation easily. "I know you normally don't care about your surroundings or like, other people, but you've been extra spaced today." She halted. "Are you high right now?"

"No," I said with a frown. "I wish. But no."

Bobby stared at me expectantly. "Is that it? Is the problem just that you're not high?"

I wondered if Kim struggled with lying to me as much as I struggled with lying to Bobby and suddenly felt a gust of sympathy towards the girl. I spared a glance in her direction. Kim was sitting in the same spot she always did, where I used to sit next to her. Her head was down, hair acting like a curtain around her face and her shoulders hunched. I thought of the way she cried when I told her friendship wasn't an option for me anymore and how I had to fight off this impulse to hug her and tell her everything would be okay. Kim was so fragile.

And I figured that's why I was sitting next to Bobby and not her. I was too sharp, too hard, to be around someone who could crumble so easily.

"Just thinking about what you said," I answered, taking my eyes off of Kim and turning to pretend to focus on the lab work Bobby had already finished. "Been on my mind recently." It was a lie, a blatant and boldfaced lie. Nothing Bobby had said was on the forefront of my mind. There was only one thing I could focus on. And maybe yesterday, before my unspoken theory was confirmed for me, I could have considered what she said a little bit more. But now there was just not enough room inside of me for another little problem like that.

She ate it up. She put her hand on my shoulder and looked at me like I was the most pitiful little thing she had ever laid eyes on. "Remy," Bobby said my name like it was heavy, "I know it sucks to think about. And I'm sorry that you're so romantically illiterate I had to spell it out for you."

I snorted. "What a nice way of putting it."

"That is the nice way of putting it," she said plainly. "I could be meaner about it if you want, but I thought we were having a tender little moment there, you brat."

"I'm not good at tender moments. I have a timer on how long I'm allowed to be emotional and everyone's been so sensitive lately I'm down to like, three minutes now." I leaned back in my chair. "I thought I'd be living, laughing, and loving by now. I'm not doing any of those things."

Bobby raised her eyebrows at me, gathering her things as the bell rang. "Are any of us?"

I almost felt bad for Embry. I wondered if he ever regretted following me around until I willingly accepted his company, because there was no way he could've known that I would take up almost all of his time. But even though almost all the time we spent together was me running my mouth and pestering him with questions, he never showed an ounce of annoyance. Embry always looked at me with soft smiles and eager eyes.

I was sitting on his bed, legs crossed with my philosophy of happiness paper half-finished resting on the tops of my thighs. I wasn't writing, just holding a pencil in my hand and watching Embry try to do algebra homework at his desk with furrowed and confused features. A small smile grew on my face. There was something very innocent about him and the way he was. He was never angry or harsh or spiteful. And I had done plenty of things to deserve his anger. Embry was everything I was not, patient and kind and careful and charismatic and there was this softness inside of him that made me feel like the harshest parts of me were unnecessary.

"Do you have any idea where Bear could be?" I asked after a moment of staring, gently tapping my pencil against the edge of my jaw.

"No," Embry replied on an exhale, still staring down at his homework. "He got pretty far north yesterday before we lost the trial, and we don't know where he's technically been staying. Do you know what the hell an imaginary number is supposed to be?"

I smiled. "I know that it's an evil and confusing concept and you can blame René Descartes for it. God I hate that bastard. Did you know he's the one who theorized a connection between ethics and metaphysics?"

Embry let out a groan that I thought would rumble the entire house. "You know the more time I spend with you, the more I realize that dead philosophers are the ones to blame for everything I hate. Imaginary numbers, HBO miniseries, capitalism."

"I'm not sure which philosopher is to blame for HBO, I have to admit," I said, leaning my chin against the palm of my hand. "Can you stop changing the subject, though? You know how easily distracted I am."

He frowned at me. "Remy, you know everything I know about the situation. I'll tell you any new information as soon as I get it."

It wasn't enough for me. And it was my impulse to look Embry in the eye and tell him he wasn't doing enough to find my brother, but I stopped myself. Because, at the end of the day, Embry didn't have to look for him. It wasn't his job and it wasn't his responsibility. He wouldn't' gain anything from finding Briah. Embry was doing it because he was my friend and because he was kind and I felt like I had to constantly remind myself of that fact because I was just so fucking eager to see Bear again. "I feel like, I dunno, I could be doing more to try and find him. Instead of just sitting here."

"No offense, Remy, but there's nothing really for you, or any human, to do," he explained, his homework now completely abandoned. "There's a pretty specific skill set required for this kind of work, and I know you're scrappy but I don't think you cut it."

I raised an eyebrow and reached for my backpack. Embry watched with curious eyes as I fished around the bottom of the bag and then they widened in horror when I pulled out my pocket knife and held it proudly in the air. It was just a few inches too long to be legal and it used to belong to Bear. I never figured out where he got it from but I fished it out of his sock drawer a few weeks after I thought he was dead. "They're like sharks right? I could just, y'know, go out into the woods and offer up some fresh blood and if he's within a couple miles-"

"No," Embry said firmly, lurching forward at a speed too fast for me to stop him to grab the knife from my hand. "Absolutely not. Not a chance in hell."

"Oh come on," I argued, "it's not like I'm plunging the blade into my heart."

Embry looked at me with a severe expression. "If he smells your blood, he'll kill you." And when I laughed at the notion, he shook his head and sat down next to me on his bed, grabbing my wrists in his hands. "Remy, I'm serious. This is why I wanted you to hear the legends first, so you know they type of things he's capable of. He's still your brother but he's not the same. And I know you're eager to find him, but Briah's dangerous to be around."

I thought of the slaughter in our tribe and of dead and lifeless bodies flooded the streets of Seattle and no matter how violent and angry my brother was I couldn't picture him wrecking that kind of havoc. Especially not on me. "Briah wouldn't hurt me," I assured him, confident in the fact. "He loves me."

His fingers were hot against the skin on my wrists. "I'm not saying he doesn't. But Briah's different now. Okay? Please understand that. And when we find him, he might not be safe for you to be around."

There was a fire in my voice when I said, "If you think you're gonna keep me away from Bear then you're dead wrong."

"That's not what I meant, Remy," he said. "I just mean, like, immediately. I asked Jacob to talk to Bella so she could ask her leech boyfriend about it. If they're useful for anything, it would be this." And when I said nothing, he searched for more words to appease me. "I just want you to be prepared for whatever happens. Cause like, a lot could happen, and I'm not gonna let you walk into a situation that puts you in danger."

I groaned. "You think everything is dangerous!"

"And you think nothing is dangerous! If not for me, I'm pretty sure nothing would stop you from stealing blood donations from the Red Cross and camping out in the woods until you found him." He watched the way that information processed on my face and said, "This isn't the type of situation for you to be impulsive. Let's just take it a day at a time and be patient, alright?"

"I'm sorry, do you know who you're talking to?"

Again, he groaned, this time collapsing against the bed. "You're killing me here," he complained, and then shot up to a sitting position again. "I really feel like asking you not to put yourself in life-threatening positions is really the bare minimum here."

I frowned. "I care more about finding my brother than I do about anything and if that means there's some risk for me than it's worth it."

"I'm making a lot of compromises here. You can't even begin to understand how much this goes against my nature. Like, the idea of letting you alone with a leech," he paused, sucking in air and holding it for a few seconds before letting it go again, "all of my instincts are screaming at me to keep you away from him. But I know how much you've missed your brother and how much you love him, so I'm gonna go against literally every bit of instinct I have just to make you happy. So can you please, pretty please, just keep yourself safe and be patient? I'm not asking that much, Remy."

I chewed on the inside of my cheek. Embry's words were so heavy and I knew he said that he told me everything there was to tell me but the way he spoke made me feel like there was something I was blind too. And I didn't understand and I felt lost at his words but the way he said them made me just nod my head. "I mean, I guess," I agreed begrudgingly.

Embry slid off the bed and picked up his abandoned algebra. "I've never had to work so hard to convince someone to consider their own physical safety before."

"Oh, that reminds me, are you gonna be busy this weekend?" I asked him, picking my own homework back up.

"You mean besides looking for your brother and looking for the leech that's hunting Bella? No, not really. Why?"

I gave him the most innocent smile I could muster. "Cause me and Bobby are gonna go to Portland on Saturday and we need a designated driver on retainer." He shot me an unimpressed look. "You know, just in case."

"Fine," he agreed after a long moment, "But you have to hang out with me all day Sunday."

"If that's your only condition, then you're a sucker. Cause I would've done that anyways."

Embry looked over at me with a grin so bright it made me think that being patient wouldn't be as hard as I thought it would.

I leaned up against Bobby's counter, plunging my fork into a bowl of pineapples her mother had left out on the table. My phone was ringing, vibrating against her countertops. I declined it, instead watching Bobby pace around her kitchen with her phone in her hand. "I'm gonna call her."

"Then call her," I replied, mouth full of pineapple.

Bobby ran a hand through her hair and tugged at the roots. I'd never seen her look so distressed, pacing around in her pink little tracksuit and dark hair frizzy and flying loose. And this may have made me a bad friend, but there was something so special about seeing Bobby broken down like this. It was a beautiful reminder that even the most put together person I knew could be as messy as me. "But she said she didn't want to talk to me."

"Then don't call her," I offered, declining the call on my phone when it started ringing again.

"But I don't know," she whined, stomping her feet down on the kitchen floor. "I really like her."

"Then call her."

She stopped mid-pace and glared. "You're not being helpful."

"You only have two options, Bobby," I told her, waving around the chunky piece of fruit that hung from the tip of my fork. "I'm not quite sure what other option you want me to present you with."

Bobby stopped, looked at me with white eyes and with a eager tone, said ,"What if you called her and told her that you're in love with her? And then if she rejects you, then we'll know she's into me." She smiled, like this was a good idea.

"First of all, no. Second, I'm not sure that that's what that would mean."

There was a brief lull in conversation in which the only sounds were my slow chewing and Bobby tapping her finger against the screen of her phone. "I've never been nervous over a girl before," she said in a hushed voice, not looking up at me.

"I know. It's annoying."

"Okay well we all can't have our own version of Embry Call," she snapped, any softness in her voice disappearing. "Some people actually have to worry about whether or not the person they like actually cares about them."

I rolled my eyes at her. Bobby loved to talk about who I should date and who she thought wanted to date me whenever she couldn't figure out what to do with her own life. And that was the absolute last thing I wanted to talk about. "This again? How come every time we're talking about your misfortune with Leah Clearwater you deflect off to my love life."

Bobby grinned, like she caught me. "So you admit Embry's a part of your love life?"

"Call Leah or I'm gonna break your legs," I said, voice firm as my phone started ringing again. I was half tempted to answer, but I just pressed my thumb down hard on the decline button.

Bobby raised an eyebrow at me. "Who's been calling you?"

"My mom," I told her. I hadn't talked to my mother since she called me while I was on the beach with Embry. I refused to talk to her; the idea of hearing her voice made my blood feel like nails. And even though I was in near constant panic over what would happen to Briah and consumed with the idea of finding him, almost everything else in my life was falling into place. It didn't matter to me that I wasn't talking to my parents. The further away I was from my mother, the healthier and happier I felt. Bobby was more of a mother to me than she ever had been, and Bobby was just eighteen.

"Are you gonna answer?" Bobby asked hesitantly.

I put the phone in my pocket and went back in on the pineapple. "No."

She tilted her head. "Well, what if it's important?"

"Nothing she'll say to me will be as important as what you have to say to Leah Clearwater."

"I really don't think that's true."

"We'll never know if you don't call her."

Bobby groaned, stomping down on the ground again. "This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make."

"God you're like a toddler." And when I felt my phone buzz from my pocket once more, I yelled, "Oh my god leave me alone!" I pulled it out and was ready to scream at my mother, but halted when I saw the name flash across the screen. "Oh, I don't know this number."

"Exciting. Maybe it's Leah Clearwater."

I rolled my eyes at her and answered, pressing the phone against my ear. "Hello?"

"Remy? Hi, um, it's Bella. Bella Swan. I'm Jacob's friend."

My eyes widened at the soft and shaking voice. She sounded nervous. Bobby shot me a look of confusion, so I said, "Oh, right Bella Swan. What's up?" At the sound of her name Bobby's mouth dropped slightly.

She chuckled nervously on the other line. "Right, so I'm sorry if this is weird, but I was actually wondering if you wanted to um, hang out sometime this weekend?"

The panic was clear on my face. Bobby whispered, "What is she saying?" and I shrugged, phone still firm against the side of my face.

"Um, one second," I said into the phone and then pressed it hard into my chest. "She wants to hang out with me this weekend?" I said to Bobby in a squeaky voice than sounded an octave higher than it normally did.

Bobby's expression must have mirrored mine. "What? Why?"

"I don't know! We met once and I was mean. What do I say?"

"Well, do you wanna hang out with her?" Bobby asked, leaning in closer to me.

"No," I said confidently.

Bobby rolled her eyes. "I got this," she said, reaching her hand out towards me. Hesitantly, I placed my phone in her hand. And in one swift motion, she brought it up to her ear and said into the receiver, "We'll pick you up at noon on Saturday. Can't wait. Bye!" she rushed, and slid the phone back to me.

I gaped at her. "What the hell was that?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Don't be mean about it. Any one brave enough to talk to you deserves to have a chance."

I pouted for the rest of the night, thinking about just how much I didn't want to hang out with Bella Swan. And maybe it might've been useful if it was just the two of us, and I could flood her with questions about what vampires are like and maybe even convince her to introduce me to her vampire boyfriend. But Bobby would be there and it would be a full day of unwilling bonding and girl time. I couldn't think of anything more irritating than socializing, never mind unwillingly. And for some reason, I felt like it was Embry's fault.


	24. chapter twenty-four: the sweatshirt

While I rolled around in soft sheets and struggled to keep my bloodshot eyes closed, I thought about Embry Call. There wasn't anything in particular about him that lingered in my thoughts. It was just that whenever I closed my eyes I saw the way he looked at me. I felt the warmth of his hand cupping mine. I heard the softness in the way he spoke; no words in particular just the low hum of his voice in my ears. And it immobilized me.

I dragged myself down to Bobby's backyard, wearing a sweatshirt I stole from Embry that fell halfway down my thighs. It still smelled like him, the scent of pine and freshness and I pulled the hood over my head to completely encase myself in it. And even though I was alone, my cheeks still flushed when the end of the sleeve flopped over the tips of my fingers and I brought it up to my nose.

Unpicked weeds and grass tickled the bottom on my thighs when I settled the grass with my back up against the foundation of the house, staring right into the forest, thinking of the people I care about and how they might be weaving between the trees. My thumb hovered over the keyboard of my phone and I wondered if Embry cared about me as much as I thought he did, or if I was conflating his interest in me to match my own in him. I pressed send, wondering if he would even be awake to read it.

I didn't know how I felt about Embry. I knew that I was happier when he was around and when he was gone I spent most of that time thinking about him. I knew that he was the only person in the world who could rip my thoughts away from my undead brother. I knew that I liked the way it felt when he held my hand or kissed the top of my head and that if anyone else tried that they'd be nursing a broken nose. I knew that whenever he said something about Bella Swan my gut twisted up and my throat tightened and I knew that he had made his way onto the list of people I'd throw a punch and land in jail for. And, above all, I knew that Embry had wormed his way into my life and now, if he were to leave, it would cut me up just a little too deep. I wasn't stupid enough to think that those feelings didn't have any implications but when I imagined anything beyond our current dynamic I filled up with dread, like I swallowed cement. I just wanted to be around him. I didn't want to complicate anything.

Looking back, I wasn't even sure of how it happened. It was sudden and strong; one day I was alone, and the next Embry was by my side, comforting me and annoying me and refusing to let me ignore him. I couldn't remember what living felt like before he feel to his knees before me outside of Kim's house. There was no way how I could trace the frustration and annoyance I felt towards him to this mixed bag of indescribable emotions that made no sense to me. It felt like every time I was around him, I was in a trance.

My phone hadn't vibrated but I checked it anyways, knowing there wouldn't be anything there but still feeling disappointed when there wasn't. I dropped my head against the house, nervous energy bubbling in my stomach all the way up to my throat. This was the feeling I always got before I saw Embry, a stupid and buzzing feeling that I couldn't get rid of and I couldn't control. It totally consumed every part of me until I saw him again. It made time go slow and my legs bounce involuntarily and it was like nothing I had ever felt before.

Embry always showed up, even when I didn't ask for him. I tried to remind myself of that while I stared at a blank screen, waiting for something that might not ever come. The Remy that existed two months ago wouldn't have ever sent a late night text asking for company, and she especially wouldn't have chewed her cheeks apart waiting for a response

For a moment, I indulged in imaging what Briah would think of Embry. Not the Briah that existed now, inhuman, with a tainted image, but the one that I knew. I didn't think he'd like him, at first. Bear would give him a hard time, questioning and threatening and challenging. I wondered if he'd hold out a shot of whiskey towards Embry and offer my company as a reward for taking it, like he did before. And even though Bear would watch Embry with slanted eyes and a snarled lip, he'd get used to him. Eventually he'd stop calling him a bitch and a pussy and start calling him by his name.

There was a rustling in the trees and I snapped my head up at the sound. It was like the shaking of leaves had me trained to be on alert, to know something was coming and to be prepared for whatever could come out from the other side.

First, I saw the nose, black and twitching, like it was sniffing for something. It was the nose, and then it was everything. I must have stopped breathing at the sight of him. He was massive, taller than me just standing on all fours. And he was sleek, black and grey and distinct. He stood there, a good distance away from me, with his nose pointed down and eyes on me, waiting for some sort of reaction. When I didn't move, he stepped closer, closing in on me until I could see his eyes. I smiled when I realized they were exactly the same.

"Do a trick," I called out to him, grinning, half-expecting him to flip over backwards or stand on his hind legs. But instead, he just dropped to the ground with a heavy thud, rolling over on his back and his tongue falling out of the side of his mouth. I shook my head. "Horrible trick. I could do that. Zero out of ten."

It was almost unsettling how human he looked as a giant wolf, and seeing him roll his eyes at me made my eyes widen. He rolled upright once more, and trotted off back into the woods. I waited, arms wrapped around my legs, staring at the spot he disappeared into. Embry Call returned, two-legged and shirtless, just a moment later, strutting towards me with that stupid smile that kept me awake. "So I can turn into a giant wolf and that's not enough of a trick for you? You want more?"

He sat next to me and I settled into his side like I was meant to be there. His arm was around my shoulder and my head was on his. The goosebumps on my legs faded away when I was next to him. His warmth spread throughout me and made me sweat under his sweatshirt. "I'm just saying that if you do have that ability, you might as well do something more interesting with it." I could feel him chuckle, and he rested his head on top of mine. For a moment, it was just the two of us, breathing. And then I said, "I didn't think you were gonna come."

"Why wouldn't I come?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused at the idea.

I shrugged, looking down at the way our legs pressed together. "I dunno. Cause you think I'm annoying and needy and you'd rather shoot yourself in the foot with a nail gun than spend more time with me?"

Embry scoffed. "Stop being dumb."

"I'm not being dumb. It's totally possible."

"It is literally impossible," he asserted. "Like, scientifically and physically impossible for me to get sick of you."

"Everyone does," I said, tone light and joking despite the heavy implications. "My parents, Kim. I'm even prepared to find all of my shit out on the street when Bobby gets tired of me."

"Why do you joke about that stuff? About me and Bobby and all your friends not wanting to be around you anymore?" he asked, his thumb tracing circles on the top of my arm as he spoke.

"If I joke about the things I'm afraid of then I won't be afraid of them, they'll just be funny."

He squeezed me for a moment, and said, "That's sad."

"No, becoming consumed by your fears is sad. Making light of them is an effective form of coping."

Embry sighed. "I'm glad you texted me. Tonight sucked and I couldn't fall asleep," he said after a moment, taking my dirty and colorful cast in his hand and tracing his fingers over the bumps.

"What happened?" I asked, voice no louder than a whisper. It made me nervous when something was wrong with Embry. Nervous that something really really fucked up had happened and angry, angry in a strange, protective way that I hadn't been able to quick wrap my head around.

Embry shifted his weight around, tapping his foot against the grass. He sighed, and said, "What would you do if you found out Bobby was your half-sister?"

I frowned. "What?"

"Hypothetically," he added quickly.

"I dunno," I answered with a shrug, skeptical of his intentions. "I guess it would be cool. I mean, Bobby's already like my sister and I live at her place, so I'm not really sure what difference it would make."

"Even if it meant your dad cheated on your mom?" he pushed, voice not as low and soothing as it normally was.

"I wouldn't blame him if he did." I leaned away from Embry to look up at him, features furrowed. "What's this all about?"

He frowned, looking down at his lap when he spoke. "Quil and Jake were just thinking about how much they hope I'm not their half-brother. And that they hope it ends up just being Sam's problem."

It took a moment for the words to hit me, but when they did, for the first time in a while, I was hit with that white hot rage of mine. My muscles tensed and I locked my jaw and I thought about storming over to Quil's house and dragging him out of bed by the ear to make him apologize. "They said that?" I asked, fists clenching. "Quil said that?"

Embry let out a heavy breath. "I mean, they didn't say it outloud like, to my face. But they thought about it."

"That is beyond fucked up," I snapped with a certain venom in my voice. "What the fuck is their problem?"

"I dunno," Embry said, sounding like he was trying to reason with himself. "I guess I get it. Like, who wants to find out their dad cheated on their mom? No one wants that. It just kinda sucks to hear it, I guess."

"They're being selfish," I assured him. Because I knew that if I was in Embry's place and Bobby found out I was her half-sister, she'd be ecstatic, glowing at the idea that her best friend finally had the knowledge of her family, just like I would for her. Just like Embry's friends should for him. "Like, holy shit for a second could they maybe consider that maybe it's not really about them and what they want? You've lived your whole life not knowing who your dad is, and the only thing they can think about is how it affects them?"

"And you know what the worst part is?" Embry plowed on, voice getting louder and just a little more erratic. "They were making it seem like they don't want me as like a brother. Quil and Jake have been my best friends for a while, and I always thought that if either of them were my family, I'd be stoked over it. I always thought that like, even if it would suck that one of their dad's did that then like, having me as a brother would be like, a silver lining or something."

"Yeah," I agreed fervently, "they should be stoked. They should be happy for you no matter what happens because they've lived their whole lives knowing who their dad was and you never had that luxury. Your friends should be happy for you and supportive of you."

Embry nodded his head, dropping my cast to hold my unbroken hand, squeezing it tightly in his own. "It's not that I want either one of their dads in particular to be my dad, I just want one adult to own up to it. I want someone to own up to what happened and tell me the truth. Quil and Jake would rather me go the rest of my life not knowing that risk it being their dad."

I shrugged out of Embry's hold and sat in front of him. He titled his head at me for a moment, confused, before I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into me. "I'm sorry all the adults in your life have never acted like adults," I said in his ear, "and I'm sorry your friends are being really shitty about it. I'll break Quil's nose. Jacob's too."

He chuckled, his hands gently placed on my hips and pulled slightly away from me. His face was so close I could feel his breath fan out on my cheeks and I found myself fixated on his eyes and how dark they looked under the shadows. "I'm really glad I have you, Remy."

My heart was in my throat and I didn't think I had ever been this close to someone for this long and I felt transfixed. I couldn't move and I couldn't breathe. I just stared, eyes wide on Embry and he stared back at me, just as still as I was. And even though we weren't moving it felt like everything was buzzing and shifting around me and I could feel it on my skin, like there were electric particles attaching themselves to me. And even though it was just a few seconds, the stillness, the proximity felt like it lasted for hours. But then, when Embry's eyes were fluttering and he slowly started tilting his head towards mine, one centimetre at a time, I snapped. I jumped up, standing so quickly it made me dizzy. "Do you wanna go for a walk?" I asked him, voice unstable and pitchy.

Embry had this small, closed smile on his face I couldn't read. "Yeah, sure."

Embry walked close to me, placing himself between me and the trees. His arm brushed up against mine but he never grabbed my hand or held me against his side. He asked me about my plans with Bobby and Bella Swan (which he swore he had no role in influencing, that it was Jacob Black who pressured Bella into spending time with us, which I had a hard time believing). I talked about my latest essay on Dadaism and the corporate state of America and he pretended to be interested in what I was talking about. I showed him that same false interest when he dove into detail about his latest automotive project and how difficult it was to fix up a whatever model from whatever year. I liked the way his face lit up when he talked about cars, and I thought that was a little bit easier to pay attention to than the words coming out of his mouth.

And when the sun started to rise over the ocean horizon, Embry walked me back to Bobby's and waited for me to get ready for work so he could drive me over there. And while I was pushing my legs through dirty, flour covered jeans, I was thinking of all the ways I could avoid thinking about what almost happened.

Bella Swan walked in between Bobby and I, trailing just a little bit behind us with her hands shoved deep in her pockets. She was looking everywhere but at me and Bobby and I wondered what Jacob Black said to her to get her to come out with us. I didn't really blame her for being uncomfortable; I could only imagine what she had heard about Bobby and me, and since her dad was chief of police in Forks, I could only imagine what she had heard about Bear. And from what I heard from Jacob, Bella didn't really like any situation her boyfriend wasn't in.

And I was less than pleased about her presence here. The idea of Bella Swan made me uncomfortable. There was nothing she had ever done wrong to me, and I knew that some of it had to do with the jealousy I felt towards her when I first met her. But it was something Embry had told me about her, about her desire to be like her boyfriend, like my brother. There was something about the way she craved the way of life that was forced on my brother that made me look at her differently.

Bobby, on the other hand, loved Bella Swan. She bombarded her with questions and talked her ear off about the people in Forks she hated. And I was starting to think there was something about girls in loose fitting jackets that just made Bobby want to take them under her wing.

The whole day, I was trying not to think about Embry, feeling like I had spent too much time with him on my mind and the almost-events made it even worse. But there was a text on my phone from him that read, Hope you have a good day out. Try not to break anything and stay safe. I'll miss you when you're gone, that I couldn't stop looking at and that made me think that some things had changed.

"Okay," Bobby said, lips pursed in contemplation, "how about, Julius Caesar, Kurt Cobain, and Peter Singer?" she asked, the heel of her boot loudly scraping against the path in the park. She had two shopping bags full of clothes, but none of them were for her. Bobby made me promise to wear a lot of skirts today.

I scoffed. "Easy. Fuck Caesar, marry Kurt Cobain, and kill Peter Singer. Nine times out of ten, I'd kill Peter Singer."

"You'd just fuck Caesar instead of marrying him?" Bobby questioned.

Before I could chime in, Bella leaned forward. "No that makes sense actually. It'd be way easier to politically influence Caesar if you were just sleeping with him, I think. Like Cleopatra."

I jerked my thumb in Bella's direction. "She gets it."

"So what do you guys do for fun?" Bella asked, stepping up a little to match our pace instead of falling behind. "I mean, besides driving all the way to Oregon."

Bobby shrugged. "We like to go out a lot and try to out drink each other and we end up shitfaced until four in the morning," she easily. "I like to start fights that Remy then has to finish." I smirked at Bobby's rendition of our dynamic. It was like she forgot that I was more than capable of starting my own conflict.

"Wow," Bella chuckled airily, "you guys make my life seem boring. All I do is spend time with Edward and reread Wuthering Heights."

I kicked a rock down the sidewalk. "Why? That book sucks. You should read Bukowski."

Bobby rolled her eyes. "No you shouldn't. All Bukowski writes about is fucking ugly women and getting drunk and the only people who think it's good or thought provoking are elitist jackasses, like Remy." Bobby smiled and ruffled the top of my hair with her hand. I rolled my eyes. "You should come to one of our parties, by the way. It'll be a good change of scenery for you. And Remy's nicer when she's drunk."

"That's actually true."

Bella looked down at her feet while she walked. "I dunno. It doesn't really sound like my scene. I don't think Edward would let me, either."

My eyes widened at her words and Bobby and I exchanged a glance. "You don't think he'd let you? What is he, your dad?"

She shrugged. "Edward's just pretty protective, I guess."

"Yeah, so is Embry. I don't have to go and ask him for permission every time I wanna do something with my friends," Bobby smirked at me at the mention of Embry but I pointed a finger at her, "Not now." I turned my attention back to Bella. "If he's protective, that's his problem. You should still be doing whatever you wanna do."

"Remy's right," Bobby said with a firm nod. "If he's controlling what you're doing that's a red flag. It's more than a red flag. It's crazy unhealthy."

Bella met our gazes, weird smile playing on her face, like she was withholding information that would explain his behavior. And vampire or not, I knew that shit was the furthest thing from okay. "He has his reasons, and I understand them. And it's not like I always listen to him. I hang out with Jake, even though he hates him. I mostly just like to appease him; I know he's coming from a good place."

Bobby rolled her eyes, and continued on, "Sure. But I don't care if your boyfriend's okay with it, you're going out with us. You don't have to drink or anything."

"And your boy's not invited," I added for good measure, giving Bella a stern look that she met with a smile.

There was a shrill ringing, followed by a drawn out and over-done gasp. "Holy fucking shit. Remy," Bobby said, holding her phone in her hand. "Leah Clearwater's calling me. What do I do?"

I groaned. "Answer it, dumbass. We'll wait over here," I told her, collapsing on a nearby bench.

Bobby exhaled heavily a few times, eyes closed, before putting the phone to her ear and answering with a cool, "Hello?"

My body slumped up against the bench, exhausted, and after a moment of staring after Bobby, Bella took a seat next to me. Silently, we watched from a distance as Bobby paced back and forth over a patch of grass. It was funny to see her scramble. "Jacob was right by the way," Bella said after a moment, and I turned my head towards her. "He said hanging out with you guys would make me feel human. This is the most normal I've felt in a while."

"Well," I stared, tone a little nasty, "I guess if I spent all my time hanging around undead people I wouldn't feel normal either."

She blinked and scoffed at my words, but didn't argue them. I was right, anyways. "You know they're not really that bad."

Her words made me think of Bear, who was just as cold and undead as her boyfriend. I had spent a lot of time jumping through ethical obstacles trying to justify the existence of a creature like them, like my brother, and there was nothing I could do to rationalize it. The thought of it was unsettling at best. And I knew that the Cullens didn't kill anyone but from the way Bella talked about her boyfriend I bet she'd find a way to justify it. I wasn't able to do that with Bear. I'd never be able to see him the same way again. "Do you know about him?" I asked after a moment.

"About Embry? Yeah, I fo-"

"No," I cut her off quickly, "about my brother."

Bella swallowed. "I know about it. I haven't heard a lot about him. Just stuff in passing."

"Like what?" I pushed, leaning in towards her. "What've they been saying?"

She was uncomfortable, shifting around in her seat like she was nervous about saying something she wasn't supposed to. But I wasn't Bella, and I could do things without permission and ask questions freely and there shouldn't have been anything stopping her from telling me what she had heard. "Just that he had been hunting in the area, I guess," she said simply.

"Hunting?" I questioned, and then quickly understood what she meant. Hunting was her polite way of saying that my brother was killing.

I felt my expression break down and Bella rushed out, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything." But she had already said it and it wasn't even her fault because I asked for it. And I didn't know why it bothered me so much because I already knew that that was what he was doing to be people. But to hear it come from someone that wasn't Embry, someone I barely knew, it felt different. It felt like the cafeteria all over again.

"It's okay," I told her, trying to swallow the feeling her words brought on. "Not your fault."

Bella gave me a soft smile. "I know you don't like me that much, but I'm glad you let me come with you guys today."

"I don't not like you," I told her, asserting that position, "if I didn't like you, it'd be a lot more obvious."

"Well, I'm glad then. It's nice to have normal friends I don't have to hide things from."

I smiled, watching Bobby rush over, smile on her face and hands shaking. "Guess who has a date with Leah Clearwater?"

"So did you like, have a totally super awesome girl's day with the girls just doing totally fun girly things?"

I shot daggers at Quil, pulling a card from my desk and throwing it down on the table. "Draw four as your punishment for being sexist."

Quil, who had at least twenty cards in his deck, groaned, and picked up four more cards from the center deck that was slowly dwindling away. "Hey, how's that strategy of getting as many cards as you can in the beginning so you get all the good cards working out for you?" Jacob teased.

The dining table in Seth Clearwater's house was covered in a combination of three different sets of UNO cards. And I was glad that Seth's mom was a nurse and she was out working a late shift, because the sun had long set, but there was still a table full of rowdy and yelling werewolves in her kitchen. And then, of course, me. I wasn't entirely sure how I ended up there, sitting in between Quil and Embry, who I had pathetically failed to stop thinking about.

"No but really," Embry said, leaning into towards me and ignoring the bustling conversation around him, "did you have a good time?"

I thought of the way Bobby dragged me in and out of shops and made me try on tiny dresses while Bella watched with small giggles and refused to participate and how Bobby wouldn't shut up about her new and upcoming date with Leah. And even though shopping and walking around too crowded cities wasn't my thing, there was something nice about the simplicity of it. "Yeah, it was pretty fun."

Embry smiled at me. And even though I had failed to stop thinking about the thing that almost happened, I was glad that he was treating me like it never happened, just the same as before. He was even letting me win at UNO, not playing his good cards against me and passing them over under the table so together, we could beat Quil. I was still furious at him, and Jacob, for that matter, but Embry made me promise not to say anything, for the time being. He wanted to talk to them first, which was more than fair. So absolutely blowing Quil out of the water at UNO was the best I could do. "Good," Embry said, smiling down at me. I had to remind myself not to stare into his eyes for too long.

"Em! It's your turn, and stop giving your goddamn cards to Remy," Seth called from across the table, mouthful of popcorn.

Quil's eyes widened. "Is that why I have four-hundred fucking cards?"

I blinked at him. "You gonna cry about it?" I asked, and Embry gripped the top of my knee, giving it a light squeeze. A gentle reminder to ease back.

"Yeah," Quil said, leaning back into his seat, "I might cry about it, Remy."

"Good," I said, settling back into my seat and leaning in towards Embry, resting my shoulder against his.

The kitchen was full of laughter and yelling and despite the bitterness I was feeling towards two out of four other people who were sitting around me, I couldn't help but get caught up in the niceness of the moment. Embry kept passing me cards, even though our operation was caught. And every time he did and our fingers would brush together and it was start a storm deep in my gut. I thought that at a certain pointed I should've gotten used to Embry and his heat but there was nothing about him that didn't make me at least a little bit nervous.

The noise, though, was interrupted but the sound of a slamming door. I jumped at the noise, whipping around to see Leah Clearwater, the girl I had been forced to talk about all goddamn day, slowly walk into the kitchen. Her expression was severe and tired and worn down, clothes tattered up and I thought that maybe Leah Clearwater was the most antisocial person I had ever met, and I had met myself. Her eyes narrowed at the table. "What are you guys doing? It's like two in the morning."

Her younger brother smiled at her. "Playing UNO with three different sets."

"Aren't you guys kinda old for this?" she asked, leaning up against the counter and watching with an expression of exhaustion I knew a little too well.

And there was a sort of communal expression around the table at the sight of Leah, this look on everyone's face like they were annoyed that she would dare walk through the kitchen of her own home. Even Embry looked uneasy at her being there. And I felt bad, because in most situations I had ever been in, I had been Leah Clearwater. And now, for the first time, I wasn't. So I said, "Do you wanna play with us?"

There was a collective groan, but Leah glared at me, looking at me how everyone else looked at her. "No, I'm not interested, Rosemary."

Leah pushed off the counter, storming off and out of the kitchen and leaving me to stare after her. "What the fuck," I mumbled under my breath, leaning forward to try and see where she went off to. "What's her problem?" I asked, to no one in particular, thinking that since she was interested in Bobby she would at least try to be nice to me.

Seth snorted, flipping through his deck of cards. "Leah hates you cause she wants to date your friend but she's nervous about it cause she didn't imprint on her."

The air shifted after Seth spoke, growing tenser than it was before. Beside me, Embry stiffened, eyes sharp on Seth. "Dude."

"Oh, fuck," Jacob mumbled.

For the millionth time, I felt lost. And this time, it was even more perplexing, because I thought I had finally figured out everything there was to know. "What?" I asked. I looked around between the people around me, trying to meet someone's gaze. But no one was looking at me. "What's imprinting?"

"Oh fuck," Jacob repeated, louder this time.

Seth was gaping, expression horrified. "Dude, Embry, I'm so sorry."

"Does someone wanna tell me what's going on?" I asked, annoyance starting to grow. I turned towards Embry, but his expression was fixed and his shoulders were shaking.

"No," he said sharply, and then pushed his chair out from behind him. "Quil," he said, voice hollow, "drive Remy home." And then, Embry disappeared out the door, and it was the last time I saw him for days.

* * *


	25. chapter twenty-five: the blood

"Remy, you are busted the _fuck_ up."

Bobby emptied a plastic water bottle on my face, stinging my cuts and washing the wet blood of my face. I choked, spitting out the blood, spit and water that pooled up over my tongue. I didn't know where the blood was coming from or who it was but it was on my face and my shirt and I kept swallowing it. "Whatever," I replied, water dripping down my face. "I'm fine," I lied. And it wasn't even the blood or the soreness on my face but the dizziness and banging in my head. My vision was blurred and I didn't know where Bobby standing or even where I was. And the gaping hole in my chest that made it hard to breathe was growing and expanding and the pain was spreading.

My head rolled back, but Bobby's hand was there, forcing me upright. "You cracked your cast, your nose is broken, your lip is busted, your knuckles are bleeding, and you probably broke your other hand. We have to go to the hospital, Remy. Like, you need stitches," she said, voice distance but her fingers tracing along the injuries on my face.

She tried to dump more water on my face but I snatched the bottle out of her hand, crunching the plastic in my fist. "No," I said, trying to sound strong but my voice came out as breathless and tired. "The only people who go to the hospitals after fights are the people who lose. I didn't lose. I don't lose."

I couldn't tell if my eyes were opened or closed but I couldn't see. I could remember, though, the little girl with her hair in big pigtails who thought it would be cute as hell to start throwing slurs at Bobby before I slammed her head against the wall. "Oh my god, you knocked her out. You knocked her out and you still kept punching. Everyone knows you won, so can you just like, drop your weird code of honor and just go the fucking hospital so we can get stitches on your lip? Like, please? You're bleeding like crazy."

Bobby's face appeared in front of mine, blurry and glossy. Her features were wide, full lips slightly gaping as she took in the details of my face. I blinked, looking into her eyes. "No," I said.

She groaned. "Alright, you know what? I'm calling Embry," Bobby snapped, digging through her purse.

"No!" I protested, trying to stand, but the dizziness knocked me back on my ass again. "Bobby, fucking stop. I'm serious. Don't fucking call him. Bobby!"

"Well, I don't know what you want me to do here!" Bobby said, voice rushed and exasperated. "You're drunk and belligerent and honestly? I'm a little bit scared of you right now. You almost killed that girl. Embry could calm you down better than me right now. And, I mean, if he couldn't he's like the only person in the world who I think you couldn't kick the shit out of right now."

I spit out more blood on the ground. My hands rooted in the grass and the dirt under me and I started to think that maybe Bobby dragged me out to someone's yard but I couldn't figure out whose house party it was and I wondered if we were even close to home. "No Embry," I repeated, voice raspy and head heavy. "We'll lie out in this grass all night if it means we don't have to call him." I hadn't seen Embry since he stormed out the door almost a week ago and I didn't know what the fuck his problem was but the further away from him I was the heavier the hole in my chest.

But I thought that if Embry would walk out of my life with no warning and no explanation, then he really didn't care about me. And that was fine. Because if he didn't care, I could care less about him. If he decided I didn't matter to him, then he would be less than nothing to me. I didn't need him more than he didn't need me.

Bobby groaned, sitting across from me and taking my hands in hers. She leaned in close to me, her forehead almost touching mine, and she said to me, "Remy, you know I love you more than anything in the world, so I need you not to take offense when I say this right now. You are being a giant dick right now."

I rolled onto my back, lying down to stare at the stars. The night sky was the only thing I could imagine looking at. It was clear cut and simple and I didn't have to strain my eyes to make out the details. "Why don't you just leave me alone then? If I'm such a dick then just leave me here."

"Don't be fucking stupid," she snarled at me. "I'm not gonna leave you here drunk off your ass. I'm calling Embry and he's gonna take you home and you're gonna stop being a fucking brat about it."

Bobby's words sent me into a panic and I shot up, blackness in the corners of my sight stretching out and spreading. I glared at her. "Bobby, don't you dare fucking call Embry. I'm not fucking around. Don't call him. I don't care, call Quil, call Leah Clearwater, call my fucking mom. I don't care. Don't you dare call Embry fucking call."

"Can you just," she started, and then sighed, rubbing her face with her hands, "can you just stay here? I'm gonna go get some more water and I'm gonna call Quil or someone, alright? Just stay here."

I fell back onto the grass, a sort of heavy sadness rising up to my throat. "Yeah, fine."

I didn't hear her leave but I waited long enough until I was sure she was gone, and then I stood. My feet were unstable but I didn't fall over and I thought that was good enough motivation to leave. Everything around me was clouded and Bobby was gone and wherever I was was the last place I wanted to be. I started walking in a direction that I thought was away from the forest and towards the street and when my feet hit the gravel, I just followed the road, knowing eventually I would end up somewhere.

Blood was spilling from my lip down my chin and all over my shirt and I thought about ripping it off and walking around in my sports bra but I was already cold enough as it was and at least the blood soaking up in the cotton of my shirt was warm enough. I didn't have a plan on how to get home; I just figured that my sense of direction was good enough to get me back home, though there was no proof to really back that theory up. I just went wherever my gut told me to go and spit out the blood in my mouth every couple of minutes. I chuckled, thinking of how funny it would be for whoever lived along this street to find a path of splattered blood wherever I walked.

I didn't think Bobby would be mad at me for leaving, since I was such a dick, and I figured she would be glad that she didn't have to babysit me for the rest of the night and she could go off and talk to her friends and flirt with pretty party people and I would just stumble down the street and she wouldn't have to worry about me. And I thought that maybe since Embry decided to walk away from my life that it wouldn't be long until Bobby followed and my whole life would just consist of wandering streets covered in my own blood.

And more than anything, I thought it was stupid for me to even depend on them in the first place, because I knew this shit would happen. Because when I didn't care about anyone or anything, no one disappointed me. There was no one there to leave. I didn't mind being alone, it was never something that bothered me, but being alone felt different now than it did before.

I kicked rocks into trees, watching them slam into the base of the bark and bounce into the ground. I didn't know why Embry left. I didn't know why he slammed the door and ignored my texts and calls and I didn't know where he was. No one would tell me anything and no one would look me in the eye when I asked them what the fuck imprinting is and why it made Embry freak. I spent days pouring over books and stupid online forums but I couldn't find anything relevant. There was nothing in legends about it and there was nothing I could do to figure it out.

Thinking about it made me lose every part of me I had gained-the softness, the empathy, and the care. All those parts of me Embry had spent smoothing out and sanding down were jagged once more, and that's why my hands were covered in pigtail girl's blood and why she was knocked out with ice on her busted face on some stranger's couch. I didn't care anymore. I had to go back to being ruthless and untouchable. I had to go back to who I was before Embry tangled his fingers in my hair and tightened his arm around my shoulder.

I didn't know how long I was walking for and I didn't know where I had ended up but the blackness was creeping up from the inside of my skull to the center of my eyes. My arms were covered in goosebumps and the coldness as sunken from the top layer of my skin to the soft center of my bones. There was darkness everywhere and I felt like I was on the verge of toppling over.

I thought about finding a nice rock to sit down on and considered just settling there until I could move without tripping over my own feet and figured that even if there was some bloodthirsty monster there then hey, at least they'd get a body with a high blood alcohol content. Vampire body shots. But while I was thinking about all the places I could collapse and sleep, bright headlights speed down the road. I squinted my eyes as the car approached and slowed.

The window rolled down and I leaned in, eyes focusing and unfocusing until I could see who was on the inside. "Quil?"

Big Brother Quil frowned at me. "Get in the car before you die, please."

I kept my eyes closed, forehead pressed against the cool window of his truck. The heat was turned all the way up and it didn't take long for me to go from freezing cold to overheating. And the higher than average temperature radiating from Quil didn't help. I would've complained but I thought that if I opened my mouth I would puke all over his truck.

"What the hell were you doing out there?" Quil asked suddenly.

I rolled my head in his direction. "Walking home, " I mumbled, and burped suddenly. "I had a super fun, super cool night," I told him with a bloody smile.

He looked over at me and shook his head. "You're gonna get yourself killed, Remy," Quil scolded. "Seriously. If Embry knew that you were walking around at night alone, covered in blood-"

"Well Embry doesn't know, does he?" I shot, feeling to weak to muster the anger up in my voice. "And why's that? Oh, because he's been ignoring me for sixteen fucking years. Why is he ignoring me? I don't know, probably because he hates me," I shouted, and then I realized that saying it out loud felt like shit and I wished I hadn't let the thought leave my lips.

Quil looked at me, expression perplexed and enraged. "Are you serious? You think he hates you?"

I kicked my feet up on his dashboard and closed my eyes. "If he didn't hate me he wouldn't be ignoring me. He wouldn't have just randomly cut me out of his life and stopped talking to me. I feel like this is a fair assumption to make. Cause like, normally when you like people, you talk to them."

"Embry's not ignoring you because he hates you," Quil explained. "He's ignoring you because he's afraid of you."

I sucked in air and blew it out of my cheeks. "I really don't think that's true."

"I don't know how you haven't noticed it. Embry's like, dumb stupid scared of you."

I looked over at Quil. "Why the fuck would Embry be scared of me?"

He titled his head, pretending to think about it. "Probably because he loves you and you're like the single most terrifying person in the Pacific Northwest, possibly the entire western half of the United States. You hold his heart in your blood-covered man-hands. Damn, you're really covered in blood. Whose blood is that?"

"I dunno. Mine. Some blonds. Who gives a shit?" I asked, shrugging. "Embry doesn't love me."

Quil flicked his blinker on and pulled over to the side of the road. He twisted, looking at me with his hand on the wheel. "Remy, we've all been shitty towards Embry lately. Okay? Me and Jake fucked up when it came to the whole half-brother dad thing."

"Yeah that was a pretty dick move."

"I know," he agreed quickly. "And Seth really fucked up when he brought up the thing you weren't supposed to know about yet."

"I assume you're not gonna fill me in."

"Nope, so don't ask. And honestly, I know him avoiding you isn't really your fault, but he feels like the world is kinda turning against him right now, and nothing's really going right. And it's really, really important to him that things go right with you, because he loves you. But he's convinced that things aren't gonna go right and he's gonna lose you forever, because you're scary and mean like a goblin. So he's avoiding what he thinks is the inevitable," Quil explained, and I leaned my head back against the fake leather headrest. "You really gotta go easy on him here, Remy."

I stared at my feet. My sneakers were old and ratty and had old blood stains and new ones and I wondered if I had a pair of shoes that weren't a biohazard. I said to Quil, "Have you talked to him?"

"Yeah. He misses you."

I nodded, looping my fingers around my dirty shoelaces and tangling them up together the way Embry used to knot his fingers in my hair. "Whatever. Can you just please take me home?"

With a sigh, Quil shifted his car back into drive and sped off into the street. He didn't talk much the whole drive home, just looked my way whenever the pained howl of a wolf cut through the silence.

Bobby chewed me out. She chewed me out a lot.

"Did you even think about how I would feel when I realized you were gone? Do you ever think? Ever? No, I'm serious Remy, have you ever had a thought in your entire life?"

I groaned, rolling my forehead over a frozen bag of peas. "No."

She was pacing back and forth in her room, steam basically pouring out of her ears. The sun had barely risen before she raised her voice at me. "I mean, honest to god Remy, I know you're upset and this is your first time being dumped and like, I get it, I'm furious too. But you can't just stumble around town alone and drunk! And in the middle of the night! What if you had gotten kidnapped? What if you had gotten murdered? Do you even think about any of those things? Oh right, you don't, because you don't think. Zero thoughts! Your head is empty."

"Okay, first of all," I started, resting the peas on the top of my head, "I didn't get dumped. I couldn't have gotten dumped, because I've never dated anyone. A relationship can't end if there was never a relationship to begin with."

"I'm not in the mood for semantics right now," she said with a huff, crossing her arms and glaring at me.

I stood, peas falling, and made my way over towards Bobby. I put my arms on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Bobby, I am sorry that I have zero cognitive thinking skills. I'm sorry I acted like a dick." I sighed, dropping my arms by my side and I felt tears prick at my eyes. "I thought you didn't wanna be around me because I was a dick, and that maybe you'd be better off if I wasn't around. I just don't know what the fuck is up with me lately." I inhaled sharply. "Don't tell anyone I told you this, but it kinda feels like I actually got dumped."

Bobby's face softened, and she placed a hand on my cheek. "Remy, I'm still super goddamn annoyed and I'm gonna make you watch at Jennifer's Body with me at least three different times tonight to make up for it, but I get it. Ending relationships always sucks, no matter the relationship. And like," she shifted, collapsing on the edge of her bed and holding my hands in hers, "I really don't know what happened with Embry, but I know that he left and it really hurt you. And you don't have to pretend to not care. At least not around me."

I looked out Bobby's window, where the sun was shining between the trees. "I'm gonna go for a run," I told her, not looking her way. "I've been too distracted to work out lately. That's why that bitch in the ponytail got my lip good," I said, pointing to my busted lip. There was a deep, dark red cut that ran down the center of my bottom lip.

Bobby rolled her eyes at me. "Are you sure? It's like seven in the morning and you're still hungover as shit."

Shrugging, I slipped a hair-tie off my wrist and looped my hair into a ponytail. "I dunno. Maybe I'll sweat all the toxins out. Running always makes me feel better," I said. The past few weeks I was so fixated on Embry and Bear and the supernatural shift in my reality that the muscles in my arms started to fade off into the fat and when I threw punches my arms felt heavier. I didn't wanna be weak.

The morning air was wet and cold and it pinched at my skin. My lungs pumped down Bobby's driveway and I picked up speed as I turned onto the street and ran through the res, passing the shore and the cliffs and all the places I had spent time with Embry. My legs kicked a little bit faster at the thought of him, like I could outrun the memories. It didn't take long for my lungs to start screaming once more, burning and gasping for air. I was out of it.

There was no battered and busted punching bag at Bobby's, and there was nothing around for my to throw myself into. The rage just bottled up and unleashed at random and I thought about the morning my dad leaned against the counter and told me that he wasn't gonna let it go unchecked. And when I thought about every that had happened since then, the drinking and the fighting and the screaming and the running, I wondered how my dad felt knowing he failed two out of two of his kids.

Running, I wished that my mother was actually my mother. I hadn't talked to her since she called me that once, demanding I return home. And it wasn't her that I wanted, it was the fantasy of what she could be: caring and loving and understanding. I guess I had tried to supplement that with Bobby but Bobby could be just as reckless as me and her advice was often harsh and cutting and I thought that, even though I loved her more than almost anyone else, she couldn't replicate that maternal care I craved.

I was gasping for air by the time I turned down a familiar street, and I slowed, staring down at the one-story little house I hadn't been to since I whipped my hand across Jared's face. I thought maybe that my legs brought me to Kim's house before I could even think about it. I stood at the edge of her driveway, staring down at her car with my hands up on my hips and my lungs gasping for air. This was where I always went whenever I was in turmoil, and I guessed that instinct never really went away.

I took small steps towards her front door. There was no game plan and I had no idea what I would say to her. My back and face were slick with sweat and I was still worn down from the hangover. But when I arrived at her front door, I knocked without a second thought. No hesitation, and no doubt.

Kim opened the door, hesitantly, looking up at me with wide eyes. She was drowning in a grey sweater and her eyes were bloodshot. She was always crying. "Remy," she said, pronouncing my name like it was foreign to her tongue. "What are you doing here."

"Um," I started, leaning against her door frame and looking into her eyes. "I just thought we could talk, if that's cool."

"What about?" she asked, eyeing me skeptically, stepping out onto her front porch and closing the door behind her. I figured Jared must've been in there. And I had no idea where I stood on that front.

There was this thickness between us I felt like I had to swim through. "I dunno. I'm kind of in a crisis, I guess."

She chuckled lightly. "Well, I guess some things just don't change."

"Can you tell me what imprinting is?" I asked her, voice rushed and desperate for an answer and not interested in forcing any small talk.

"Remy..." she started.

"I know you know, Kim."

Kim sighed, crossing her arms and shifting her weight between her legs. She was defensive, round face scrunched and ready to stand her ground. "It's kind of fucked up for you to come to me for answers when you said you didn't wanna be my friend anymore."

Her words make me take a step back, leaning away from her and her house. I reeled them over in my head but I couldn't make sense of them. "What are you...what do you..."

"Don't play dumb. You know you were my only friend," she said, voice low and hurt but without any trace of anger. "And you know I miss you all the time. You came here cause you thought I'd tell you everything you wanna know just because I miss you."

I looked down at my feet. "You know I don't think things through that much."

She let out a low laugh. "If you wanna actually talk about what's going on then that's one thing, I guess. But I'm not just gonna tell you shit that's not my place to speak on."

I smiled. Kim was emotional and erratic and she was hardly ever predictable but sometimes, when the tears settled and she caught her breath, her words made a lot of sense. "I guess I'm just tired of losing people, I guess."

Kim was probably the last person I should've been complaining about being alone to. Because even though she had Jared, she didn't really have anyone else. Kim was always alone, but it was never really by choice. She didn't care for silence the way I did, and when Kim was alone with her thoughts for too long the tears would start up. And even though I lost Embry and Bear and Kim, I still had Bobby and Quil and fuck it, I even had Bella and Jacob. And Seth Clearwater annoyingly made me like him. I had lost more but I had more to start with. "It sucks. I know," she paused, looking in my eyes. "I just think you should know that every person you think you lost really does care about you. People love you more than you think they do, Remy."

Her words didn't comfort me. They were ankle weights of guilt that weighed me down for the rest of the day, drowning me. And I think that was what she wanted.

I smoked cigarettes for a month. After Bear went missing, I found a guy over in Forks who would sell them to me even though I wasn't old enough because he felt bad for me. I didn't like the way they smelled but there was something about the smoke flooding my lungs that I thought was therapeutic. I didn't really care about anything other than the motions of inhaling and exhaling and I figured that if I couldn't have Bear and I couldn't have Embry then I could have a cigarette. I couldn't even remember why I quit.

The bells rang when I stepped out of the gas station with a new pack in my pocket and one cigarette dangling from the corner of my mouth. I walked off the curb and headed off towards the dirt road that led me back to the res. I missed having a car but I liked the long walks. I liked the way I got to be alone for my thoughts and the peacefulness of everything around me.

I didn't appreciate the land as much as I should've. It was like everything around me was alive, buzzing with an energy I couldn't understand. But the smell of the pine and the wet dirt and leaves grounded me.

I dipped off, turning off into the mouth of a hiking trail and settled on a large boulder, leaning my back up against the bark of a tree and lighting the cigarette in my mouth. There was never any concern about a forest fire. Everything was wet. The whole place was soaked, like the trees and the ground absorbed a few inches of water permanently.

Smoke flooded in my lungs and I coughed. It had been a while, and I struggled to regain my breath. Still, I brought it back up to my lips, right above the cut, and inhaled. My eyes watered and my lungs burned but I exhaled the smoke easier this time. The smell of it floated in the air, so different from the freshness of the woods around me.

Everything was shit. Everything was shit and I didn't know what to do. And even though I worked so hard to not care about Embry, in the stillness of the woods, I could admit that I really fucking missed him. When he left, the cuts he left in my chest were so jagged and deep and irregular, it was like a pain I had never felt before. It was something completely out of my control and unfamiliar and even when I thought I had felt loss before it was nothing like the way I felt without Embry.

I figured it was some sort of karma, for all the times I had snapped and turned my back on him and for all the times I broke his heart. But even when I was so mad at him I thought I would snap his neck in half, I never stayed mad for long. I never ignored him for a week. And there was something about the way he slammed the door that had an air of finality to it. I knew that Quil said Embry cared about me, but it didn't feel like he did. It felt like he was gone for good for no other reason than he wanted to be. I tried to think of everything I could've done to get him to stay or even what happened that made him leave in the first place.

I flicked the tip of the cigarette into the ground and wondered what Embry would say if he knew I was smoking. I liked to imagine he would care; that he would scold me and lecture me on all the health dangers of smoking. But every time I pictured the way his eyes would widen and he'd reach over and snatch it from between my lips, I said to myself that if he cared enough about me, I wouldn't be smoking in the first place.

"You know that shit's gonna kill you, right?"

I jumped at the low and smooth voice. Goosebumps spread on my skin and I didn't know how anyone could sneak up on me without the crunching of leaves under their feet giving them away. And when I realized that I knew that voice, my heart shot up to my throat and every part of me knotted up. Slowly, with wide eyes and shaking hands, I turned around.

He was standing there, closer to me than I thought he would be. He was there. Perfect and smiling and smooth skin free of any of the scars I had grown used to. His crooked, sharp nose was straightened out. He looked the same, with his dark skin and wild hair, but different. My mouth went dry at his bright red eyes.

"Bear?"

"Hey Rem," he said, easily, like it was nothing. His smile grew. "I've missed you, kid."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehe this is my favorite chapter


	26. chapter twenty-six: the distance

The parking garage was overtaken by vines and graffiti and weeds growing in between the cracks in the cement. I leaned up against Bobby's car, breathing uneasy, as I stared at the fixture and tried to figure how what the fuck was so special about this place I had to spend twenty minutes convincing Bobby to let me have her care and drive forty-five minutes away from home to get there.

After about ten minutes of unintelligible ramblings and fat tears, Bear told me home wasn't safe for him, and this was where I had to go to talk to him. And I thought that there was nothing that could stop me from talking to my brother but I was lost at the idea that I had to drive all the way east, through trees and abandoned industrial areas just to see him when a couple hours earlier, he was standing right in front of me.

Still, I pushed off the car and made my way into the abandoned garage. I wasn't scared of the place and I wasn't scared of Bear, but there was something mingling in my gut, lighting my cells on fire. Walking further and further in felt against my nature. My palms were sweating and I had to remind myself not to bit down too hard on my cheeks because I didn't know what would happen if I started bleeding.

The sight of him knocked my breath out of me again, like it did the first time. And I didn't think I would ever get used to seeing my brother standing in front of me, looking like himself but so different. Because every day for the past year, I imagined him as nothing but decomposed flesh and weakened bones. But there he was, leaning up against the skeleton of an old car, smiling at me like I was the best thing he had ever seen.

My hands were shaking by my side and it was my instinct to leap into his arms. I stepped forward, but Bear put his hand up. "That's probably not a good idea," he told me, and his voice stunned me in a way that made my ability to process his words slowed. "I think for now it's best you keep your distance. I haven't really been around people without...well, you know."

I was frozen in front of him for a moment, brain on overdrive. At that moment, I didn't care about the implication of his words or the distance I had to keep but the fact that my brother, my Bear, was standing right in front of me, hair curled and shiny on the top of his head and crooked grin still the same. I was stumbling internally, thoughts racing and struggling to find the words to say. But I stood still, absolutely frozen in awe of my brother.

"You look like you saw a ghost, Rem," Bear teased, and I couldn't hear enough of his voice. That was my brother and that was his voice and I thought I would never hear it again.

I choked out a laugh and worried I would start crying again. "I'm just like," I started, and then empty my lungs of air, "I'm just freaking out. Like, I don't even, I mean, what even is this situation? Like, what is happening? I don't even..."

Bear eyed me, studying the way I stood and now that I was unfreezing I was fidgeting, knotting my hands together and shifting around my weight. "It's so weird to see you like this again," he said, and then let out a laugh. "I don't know what I was expecting, but you're still the same. Still scrappy little Remy."

I smiled, looking at my brother with an adoration that was always reserved for him. And I realized that even though the rose colored glasses I used to remember Bear were gone, and I knew he wasn't the person I had always thought he was, it didn't matter. He was still my big brother and my best friend and he was standing in front of me and nothing else mattered. I didn't care about the needles or Jared or the redness in his eyes because he was Bear and I was Remy and we were together again. "What-what happened to you?"

His smile faded at the question, and I realized how still he had been standing, arms crossed and posture frozen against the beat up old car. He had even twitched or shifted. Bear looked so out of place, among all the beaten up and broken things. "I was gonna run away," he told me, voice far off. "I had a court date and they were gonna throw me in some prison to rot. And I didn't wanna be that guy. I didn't wanna be a statistic. So I just left. I got drunk off my ass and I just walked off into the woods and I thought I would come out somewhere eventually."

"I didn't plan it out very well. I was drunk and I mean, I thought my life was over. I took the stuff I was supposed to sell and when I was walking through the woods I swear I was so high and so gone I wasn't even seeing where I was. And then I knew I was gonna die. I panicked because I was lost and I didn't have any food and I had been walking for hours and it was just like, I knew I was fucked and I was so scared. When I started to come down from the drugs and the rum I just thought, okay, I can't go home, and I'm not gonna get out of these woods. I'm just gonna die here."

"I was just sitting there, crying my eyes out. I didn't wanna die, necessarily, I just thought that I didn't really deserve to live. And I mean, I had a bunch of pills in my bag, and I just took them. I took them all and I closed my eyes and cried and I thought of you. I wished I could've talked to you before I left and I was scared about what was gonna happen to you. I remember thinking that if I was gone, you wouldn't have to live with the consequences of what I did anymore. I don't know what else happened, but it was just black for a while."

"And then, it was just pain. It was the worst pain I had ever felt in my entire life. It was like someone had lit my veins on fire. I remember thinking I had died and landed in hell and that the pain was going to last for eternity. But it didn't. It stopped, and I woke up. I was in the same place I was when I had lied down on the ground. But I felt different. I could see things I couldn't see before, I could hear everything around me. It was like my entire body just upgraded. I was fast and I was strong. And I mean, not like before. I mean I could outrun a bullet train. I mean I could uproot a tree."

"But I didn't remember anything. I didn't know anything other than my name and for a while, I was just operating based solely on instinct. I mean, I really had to figure everything out about my existence on my own. It took a while, almost a whole year, for me to finally figure out the details of what happened to me. I hide from people, I did what I needed to do to get rid of the burning in my throat, and I stayed in the woods. And even though I didn't know what it meant, I was drawn to the house. Every night, I ended up back there, staring and watching from the woods. I had to keep my distance, because I didn't know who you or mom or dad was or why I was so interested in you guys, and if I hurt you I'd never figure it out. Which, by the way, I'm really glad I didn't."

"For a while, I would just watch you. I actually started to follow you around. Sometimes, one of those wolves would catch my scent, and I'd have to run. Sometimes you saw me, and I'd have to run. It was that night you were at that party, and you chased me into the woods, that I remembered who you were. You yelled my name, and it was like everything hit me all at once. But, one of those wolves came around, and I had to run again. I kept trying to talk to you, but you were just always surrounded by them. I didn't know what to do."

"First, I had to tell you what they were. Because if you knew what they were, you could figure out what I am. I left that note in your journal. I waited for you to figure everything out. It was really important that you knew everything about me. I was afraid that if I told you, you'd freak out and run. And then, when I knew you knew, I had to wait for you to get separated from the wolves. I mean, they're always around you. You're coated in their smell and I knew that that stringy one wouldn't let you anywhere near me. He's been tracking me, you know. He's really bad at it. So yeah, I guess that's everything."

My mouth was dry and my face was wet with tears. Thinking about everything that had happened to him, while he was alone and scared, could have knocked me to my feet. My heart ached for him and I had to fight off the urge to hug my brother and apologize for not being there for him. But coupled with that, the idea that my brother had been there, watching me and protecting me every step of the way, was comforting. I was never alone. I never lost Bear. "Wow," I said after a moment, voice hollow. "That's a pretty boring story. You should cut out some details." Bear laughed. "I have missed you so fucking much," I told him.

This made him frown. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave you on your own." He pause for a moment. "I never really took anything in life seriously, but I was always proud to be your older brother. And I mean, even though I'm different now, I'm always gonna be here for you, Rem. I'm always gonna be here to protect you. And I mean, I'll be way better at it now, too."

"No one's gonna fuck with me ever again," I repeated back some of his last words to me, corner of my mouth tugging up into a smile. Bear beamed at me. "You're not gonna leave me again, right? I mean, you're here to stay?"

"It's complicated, Rem," he stated. "I guess in my absence, Quil and that Call kid decided protecting you is their job. It's also their job to destroy my kind. I don't know if they'll let you around me. That's why I asked you to come here."

I scoffed. "That's genuinely the least of my worries. If you want to be my brother again, there's nothing in the world that's gonna stop you. Definitely not those two assholes."

"I never stopped being your brother, Remy," Bear said with a sincerity that made me remember what it was like to have a real family. "And if they can back off me, then there's no reason for me to leave. I mean," he started, tilting his head, "it's not like I can just come home. I have to stay 'dead,' and it's not like I'm eager to be around our parents again. But still."

His words reminded me of the bag they presented my parents and I on the day we thought he was dead. "Bear," I started, voice hushed, "whose bones did they show us?"

Bear looked at me with sympathy. "I had to do a lot of things to stay strong. I just want you to remember that. Everything I've done wasn't because I wanted to do it. It was because I had to."

I nodded, looking down at my shoes. "So much has changed since you've been gone."

I spent a few hours there, sitting on the dirty and cracked ground, looking up at Bear. I told him everything. I told him about the theories I had, and how I always thought that something else had happened to him, that it wasn't just a cut and dry suicide. I told him about the bakery and Bobby and he laughed at the idea of it. I told him about how close I'd gotten to Quil and how Embry entered and exited my life. I didn't tell him about Kim and Jared because we were sitting under a bubble and I thought the mention of Jared might pop it. And while I was pointing to the bruises on my face and detailing the fight, my phone rang. I knew I wasn't gonna answer, but I checked to see who was calling. My stomach dropped at Embry's name.

"Are you gonna answer that?" Bear asked.

I shook my head. "Nah, it's not important."

Bear smiled. "So what happened after she grabbed you by the neck? Did you remember everything I taught you?"

"Yes," I said with a small eye roll, "I remembered everything you taught me. I pressed my chin into her hand and I uppercut into her jaw."

"Nice."

I didn't know what time it was when he told me that I should get home, but it had been dark for a while. I was hesitant to leave, afraid that if I did I would end up never seeing him again. But Bear promised me over and over that he would come back. He told me that every Sunday after I got out of work, I could come to that broken down parking garage and see him. And that if he ever felt it was safe at home, he would come and see me too. I asked him to try to get used to being around me, because there was nothing I wanted more than to hug my big brother.

I left with tears in my eyes, turning the key in the ignition of Bobby's car. I knew she wouldn't be mad at me, no matter how late I turned back up. In order to even get the car, I had to tell her where I was going, telling her that I couldn't go into detail but it was about Bear and that time we saw him standing there in the woods together. And after that, Bobby told me to take my time.

Driving home felt strange, like I was leaving something important behind. But I trusted Bear and I trusted his word when he said this would not be the last time I saw him. And I was filled with an unimaginable sense of joy. I felt like I couldn't be touched. This was a glee that felt foreign rushing through my veins. I was something else; I was a girl with a brother once more. And maybe it was because a part of me was always hopeful that he was really out there, but I couldn't even feel shocked. It just felt right to be with Bear again.

It took awhile for me to get home. And the closer I got back to Bobby's house, the more that high feeling drained from me. I was tired, and I had realized that it was well past midnight. Bobby hadn't tried to call me, but I hoped that she wasn't worried about me. I thought that she might be sitting up in her room, waiting for me to get home.

But when I turned into the driveway, he was there, sitting against the front door. I groaned, parking the car and pulling out the keys. I should've known that something like this would've happened if I didn't answer his call. But I was so thrown by his behavior as of late I didn't know what to expect. I approached him, arms crossed defensively. "What do you want?" I asked, exhausted.

Embry's voice was cutting and sharp and his eyes were on fire. "Where the hell have you been?" he asked, a dangerous emotion laced in his words. He was mad as hell.

I snorted. "Really? You're gonna ask me that question right now?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna ask you that question right now," he shot back, standing. Embry was never this upset at me. Even when he was angry, he always spoke to me with a tenderness in his voice. But this was different than any other way he had addressed me. He was over the edge. He had snapped. I could hear.

"Oh, okay," I said. "Then, um, none of your fucking business."

"Don't be like that." He wasn't asking, he was demanding.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I snapped, loosing any sense of composure.

He laughed a humorless laugh and I thought that this might have been the first time Embry's rage outranked mine. "My problem?" he asked incredulously. "My problem is that you disappeared for hours and no one knew where you went! I thought you might've died."

"Quite frankly, Embry, I really don't give a shit. Okay? I don't."

"You can't just do that, Remy. You can't just leave and not tell anyone where you went."

"That's not true. I can do whatever I want."

He let out a heavy sigh, his chest rising and falling. "You know what Remy? I know that you have this self-defeating attitude and you try to convince yourself that no one cares about you. But I really fucking care about you. And all you do is put me through hell."

There was something about the way he believed his words were true that unleashed something in me. "I put you through hell?" I yelled, leaning forward with my hands curled into fists by my side. "I didn't want you in my life, Embry. I was doing fucking fine without you in it. I didn't need anyone and I didn't need anything. And then you come around, and you made me depend on you. You made me care about you. You made me need you. You waited until I was totally fucking enamored with you and then you fucking left. And that's so much more fucked up than anything I have ever done to you. I don't owe you anything anymore."

"You don't even know why I left," he argued back, but his voice was softer than it was before.

"I don't care why you left. There's nothing you could tell me to justify it," I said, shaking my head.

I tried to move past him, I stepped up towards the door and went to grab the handle. But Embry grabbed my arm and pulled me into him. I didn't push away, just kept my arms down on my side, because even though I was shaking with rage, when he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and held me against his chest, the hole in my heart shrunk. "I'm sorry, Remy. I just-"

And then he stopped. He stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped breathing. He pulled away, his hands clasped hard around my shoulders. "You found him," he said to me, shoulders shaking.

There was something on his face I couldn't read. I watched the way his features twisted and soured and I thought that he might burst. "Yeah," I said, voice harsh, "I found him."

Embry's hands dropped from my shoulders and I pushed passed him, stepping into Bobby's house and closing the door behind him. And I tried to tell myself that that was the last time I would see Embry Call.

* * *


	27. chapter twenty-seven: the beer

"Bobby I think this might be the dumbest thing you've ever done."

She grunted, her fingers uncurling around the metal keg we were dragging up the driveway. I was panting, hands on my hips I glared at her. "I didn't think it would be this heavy," she admitted to me, staring down at the keg that stood defiantly in between us. "What if we just left it out here? I have an extra bottle of rum and I guess we can just split that and cut our losses."

I looked around at the ridiculous, sleek house around us. It was easily the largest house I had ever seen, and there were several steps leading up to the front step and I thought my arms would fall off before I managed to get a full keg up there. "No," I asserted, "you bought this keg and we dragged it all the way down this stupid, long fucking driveway and we are going to bring it inside and make this stupid party fun if it's the last thing I do. Now grab the other side," I told her, fingers tightening around the metal again. It dug into my skin and I thought it would slice me open. "We're going again."

Bobby sighed, but obliged me. And when we lifted it again, groaning and complaining, we made it a whole five feet before we had to drop it once more. "Alright," Bobby said, waving her arms around, "maybe we could like, construct a pulley system or something."

I kicked the bottom of the keg, hoping it would move at least an inch. It did not. Going to Bella Swan and Cullen's graduation party was one of the last things I wanted to be doing. I knew, first of all, that it would be lame as hell. And I wasn't interested in being around anyone that wasn't Bear. But Bobby had begged me and since she had stopped asking me questions about Embry and Bear I figured that going to the lame party with lame, un-fun vampires was the least I could do for her. As long as I got drunk. "Why couldn't you get a cooler or something?"

"Are you two trying to sneak a keg into my house?"

Bobby and I jumped at the voice. It was low and booming and belonged to the most meathead looking guy I had ever seen in my life. I knew he was one of them, from the fact that he said this was his house, primarily, but also because of the way he stood, the way his skin looked in the moonlight, and his eyes. He glared, arms crossed as he stood at the top of the steps, looking down at the two of us. "Umm," Bobby started, looking back at me and the keg and trying to come up with something, "Yes?" she eventually settled on, and I rolled my eyes.

And I thought he might kick us out, but he grinned, jumping down from the steps and towards us. I flinched as he approached. "That's hilarious. You need help with that?" he asked, and before we could answer he crouched down, grabbing the keg by its handle and the bottom, lifting it over his head with ease. Bobby and I gaped. "I'm Emmett."

"I like Emmett," Bobby said, leaning in close to me while we followed him into the house. I smirked, watching the way he carried the keg. And I knew that this was the type of strength that I could expect from people like Emmett, but I had never seen it on display like that.

The Cullen house, massive as it was, was packed with people. Forks kids, wearing dresses and khakis from their graduations and suddenly in my thrifted jeans and tank top I felt out of place. I tugged down at the hem of my shirt, aware of how it lifted just enough to reveal just the bottom of my, admittedly, poorly done tattoo. The only lights were provided by the fairy lights strung all over the room and I felt like this was designed to be a cocktail party for boring people in their forties instead of an actual house party. Emmett dropped the keg down on the pine floor and turned to both Bobby and I with a smile, "So who's doing a keg stand?"

I snorted. "Ask me after a couple glasses and maybe a shot or two," I told him, reaching into the depth of my pockets to pull out my vodka nips. I smiled at him and unscrewed it, emptying the contents down my throat.

Emmett grinned, pointing a finger at me. "I'm gonna hold you to that. And don't you dare do one without me," he said, and I watched as he disappeared into the crowd.

And while I was watching Emmett's large silhouette walk out of sight, I noticed him, standing in the other room, looking uncomfortable and eager to leave. I couldn't fathom what Embry fucking Call would be doing at leech central, standing next to Quil and Jacob, of all people, and it made my gut twist. Cause he always told me parties were the last place he wanted to be. He never wanted to go out anywhere with me, and I didn't wanna think about what could've brought him out here.

"Bobby, I'm gonna need you to get that bottle of rum," I told her, eyes fixated on Embry. He hadn't noticed me yet, and I couldn't tell if I wanted him too or not.

"What?" she asked, fixing herself a drink from the keg. "Why?"

"Embry's here."

My words made her head whip around. She scanned the room, scoffing when she saw him. "So? Just ignore him. Don't let him ruin your night."

I nodded. "You're right."

Bobby leaned against the wall. "This party kinda sucks right now," she told me, eyes traveling over the people who were swaying along to the music. The song choice was abysmal, alternative indie music with no swing to it. I nodded in agreement. "Whatever, I'm gonna hijack the playlist and start handing out nips," she said, patting the purse she carried over her shoulder. I could hear the plastic bottles clank against each other.

"You go do that, and I'm gonna get really drunk," I called after her as she made her way through the crowd, dropping nips in the hands of party goers and on tables and counters. Bobby turned to give me a stunning smile before she faded off into a different room.

I settled on the counter, sitting there with two different plastic cups of beer, observing. Beer wasn't usually my drink of choice. It tasted bitter, made me feel bloated, and it didn't get me drunk nearly as quickly as I wanted. Still, I downed a cup as the Forks kids danced and laughed and talked in front of me. It was like I was invisible to them. I listened to them talk about their problems and wondered how many of them had undead brothers that they thought were dead for a year. I felt like such a dick, sitting there and choking down disgusting beer and thinking about how trivial the problems these people had were compared to mine.

I thought that this might've been the worst party I had ever been to, and that included the one I left with a crooked nose and busted lip. It felt unnatural and formal and when I thought about it, it made sense that the hosts were an isolated group of hundred-year-olds. I finished the second cup of beer and then went for another nip.

But the mood changed when I assumed Bobby got to whoever's playlist this was, and the beat changed. It suddenly was no longer alternative music people listen to while they write poetry, but low, bouncy beats that made my foot tap. Even the people around me seemed to change the way they stood and moved, awkward stillness now becoming dedicated swaying, singing along to familiar lyrics. Bobby appeared in my line of vision, head bobbing and a smile on her face. "Okay, I think I got like, maybe ten people drunk? Some guy in a button-up who looked like a narc asked what I was doing and I told him just having a good time."

I slid off the counter, laughing. "It was probably Bella's fucking narc boyfriend."

"You're probably fucking right. Where's that Emmett kid? I want to see you doing a keg stand and I wanna see you doing it now."

I didn't know how long it took for me to be upside down with my lips around the keg, Bobby holding one leg and Emmett holding another, dozens of strangers cheering me on. I didn't last long, only about thirty seconds before I had to tap out. But I came down, blood in my face, laughing, and from there, the party took a different turn. Bobby was handing our nips to as many people who would take them, and I wondered if she had a bottomless bag of booze.

Occasionally, I'd see one of them. One of the smooth and rigid looking Cullen's walking through the throngs of people. None of them seemed as happy about the change in atmosphere as Emmett did, who blended in much better than the rest. I didn't like them. They were so different from Bear and I could see it in the way they moved and the expression they had on their faces.

As Bobby's music played, the people around us loosened up. And I wasn't sure if it was because of the playlist change or the booze Bobby kept pumping them with. I thought I could've finished off half the keg by the time I ended up on the most comfortable couch I had ever been on, sitting with Bobby's legs on my lap while the largest group of drunk white kids I had ever seen danced poorly.

Chewing on my cheek, I looked for Bella. Bella Swan held promise, I thought, and I figured if I found her and got her away from her puffed up red-headed boyfriend, I could probably convince her to have some fun, maybe take a shot or two. But when I found her, she was standing that little trio of werewolves, standing right next to Embry.

And I knew it was irrational, but that heavy, disgusting jealousy filled me up and twisted around until my lip raised in an involuntary snarl. I didn't like that my first instinct was to start a fight with Bella Swan.

"You know what you should do?" Bobby said, eyes following mine and watching the way Embry stood. "You should make him jealous."

I snorted. "That sounds like a bad idea."

"Who cares if it is? Just go flirt with someone, see where it goes."

"I dunno," I said, finger tracing the rim of my cup. "All of these dudes seem like they suck."

Bobby rolled her eyes at me. "Well you don't have to marry them. Just pick one and laugh at his unfunny jokes and touch his arm."

"That'll work?" I asked skeptically. I never really had to flirt with anyone before. And I never really had any interest in flirting. I didn't even have imaginary experience.

"Yes, and you can trust me I've seen heterosexual movies before."

"I feel like I'm a little too..I dunno..." I trailed off, tugging at the bottom of my shirt.

Bobby swung her legs around and put her hands on either side of my face. "Remy, look at me," she said with such intensity it made me sit up a little in my seat. "You are hot. You are hot as fuck. You have cute freckles all over your face and you have the prettiest eyes in the world. Your body looks like it cost you thousands of dollars. And you're so scary, and people are into that. Alright? So. Go rub up on some dude," she said, letting go of my face and giving me a gentle slap on the cheek.

I stumbled through the Cullen house, suddenly too nervous to drink my drink. I abandoned it on some flat surface to knot my hands together while I searched for some dude cute enough to strike up a conversation with. But everyone's face kept blending together and every time I weaved in between a group of people I realized that I was only interested in seeing Embry, and no other guy seemed interesting enough for me to even give them a chance.

The idea of flirting with someone had always somewhat repulsed me. I guessed I had this picture of flirting as dumbing myself down and giggling and it felt so far off from the type of person I was. And that was only part of it; I was always repulsed at the idea of talking to most men.

After a couple laps around the first floor, I gave up. I landed in the kitchen, jumping up to sit on the counter and pout. I was always interested in pouting. And I thought about how stupid it was that I could walk around this dumb fucking house looking for some random person to flirt with just because I saw Bella Swan stand near Embry. I drank another nip.

"You look like you're having fun."

My head shot up. I was getting kind of tired of people sneaking up on me. But it was just a guy. Some random guy, cute enough, dimples and curly hair. There was nothing special about him, but there really wasn't anything wrong with him either. I wouldn't have approached him in a crowd, but I thought he would suffice. "Well, it is a party," I said, trying to muster up some coy little tone.

He smiled and there was something so off about it and it didn't take me long to realize that I didn't like it because it wasn't Embry's. I wished he was around so I could punch him in the nose for doing this shit to me. "And you're spending the party sitting in the kitchen, sulking?" he asked me.

I tried to think of what Bobby would say if she was in my position. A couple options ran through my head before I settled on, "I just got a little lonely."

"Well," he said, taking a step toward me, "maybe I could keep you company?"

Smiling, I told myself that I thought I kind of deserved this moment. I spent of my time overflowing with stress and anxiety over situations I didn't ask to be a part of and I figured that I was seventeen fucking years old, and that I could just sit down and flirt with someone and have it mean nothing and that was okay. I could do whatever I wanted to, and I wasn't doing anything wrong. I wasn't doing anything wrong. "Do I get to know your name?"

"Eli," he told me. He extended his hand towards me. "May I?"

I put my hand in his and I didn't know why I was expecting it to be as warm as I was used to. It was clammy. "I'm Remy," I told him, feeling like someone other than Remy Cree.

"Remy," he repeated, putting his arm over my shoulder in the same way that Embry always did and I had to remind myself to stop comparing the two. Eli started walking away from the kitchen, dragging me along with him. "Can I get you a drink? Someone absolutely flooded this place with nips."

"Nah," I told him as we headed back towards the room I left Bobby in. "I don't wanna out drink you and have you getting all embarrassed over it."

And in the time that this Eli kid threw his head back to laugh, fingers tight around my arm, my eyes traveled to the darkest corner of the room where Embry Call stood, glaring. I was vaguely aware of Quil standing next to him, shaking his head, but I was more focused on the way Embry glowered. His eyes were tight on mine while Eli spoke and I didn't bother to pay attention to what he said. I watched the way his shoulders rose and fall in his tight black t-shirt, enjoying the way his jaw clenched. I tore my gaze from Embry and looked up at Eli. "I'll take a drink," I told him, smirking.

"I'll be right back," he said, but I wasn't paying attention. I was watching Embry.

The second that kid's arm left my shoulder, Embry was making his way over to me, seething. "Who the hell is that guy?"

"I dunno" I said, crossing my arms. "Just a guy."

Embry leaned in towards me and I felt my heart pick up. I didn't like the way I reacted to him. It was involuntary. There were two different parts to me: the one who wanted nothing to do with Embry and the one who missed spending so much time with him that his scent lingered on my clothes. And when he was standing this close to me I felt like the two started to blur. His eyes were narrowed and there was something uncontrollable radiating off of him. "What are you doing Remy?"

I shrugged, and Eli appeared again, two drinks in his hand and he looked shocked by the appearance of Embry. "Hey dude," he said to Embry, "Remy, who's this?" he asked as I took my cup of beer out of his hand.

Sipping my drink, I watched as Embry turned his attention over towards the poor kid. Embry had more than a few inches on him, and it kinda seemed like Embry was ready to snap him in half. "Stay the fuck away from her, alright?" Embry said, and Eli's eyes flickered over towards me. "No, don't look at her. Look at me," he demanded, snapping the kid's attention back in his direction. "Don't ever talk to her. Walk away."

Poor Eli looked rattled. He didn't look back in my direction when he walked wordlessly away from the two of us. "Thanks for the beer!" I called after him, and turned towards Embry once more. "Well that was rude."

"Were you trying to make me jealous?" Embry asked, tone unreadable.

I snorted. "What, so you can just up and leave and decide you want nothing to do with me, but I can't even talk to other people?"

"You didn't answer my question."

"Whatever," I said, rolling my eyes, ready to step away from him.

"Wait," he said, grabbing onto my hand. "Can I talk to you about everything, please?"

I tapped my foot on the ground. The last thing I wanted to do in the middle of this stupid party that was meant to be nothing more than a distraction from Embry was spend my time arguing with him. "You can only talk to me if you can convince Bobby that you deserve a chance to talk to me," I said.

Embry groaned. "Bobby hates me. Can I convince that asshole instead?"

But I was already looking over his shoulder, grabbing him by the wrist and dragging him to where I last saw Bobby. She was sitting in the same spot, eyes trained on her phone, thumbs moving rapidly over the keyboard. "Bobby!"

She raised her head at my voice, frowning at Embry. "Yes?"

"Embry wants to talk to me but he has to prove himself to your first," I said, never letting go of his wrist.

Bobby turned her attention towards Embry, staring him down critically. "Saw off your fingers."

"No."

"Marry Quil."

"No."

"Saw off Quil's fingers."

"No."

"Marry Emmett."

"No."

"Then I'm sorry but Remy is unavailable," Bobby said, and turned her attention back to her phone.

"Okay, this is ridiculous," Embry snapped suddenly. He looped his hand around my bicep and lead me out the room. And I was stumbling behind him, unable to keep up with him as he rushed out of the room and out the door and into the front yard. He stopped suddenly, when the music couldn't be heard and the only people in sight were the ones stumbling out of the door. And I had to giggle, laughing at the way he dragged me. It made my heart thump in my chest. He made me sweat. "You're torturing me here, Remy," he said.

I rolled my eyes, stumbling backwards just a few steps. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"How drunk are you right now?" Embry asked, putting his hand on my shoulder, steadying me.

"I'm not that drunk," I said, putting my hand on top of his. Half of it was because of the need to stabilize myself, and the other half was because I just wanted to feel the way his skin felt against mine again.

Embry frowned at me. "Why are you doing all this?"

"Doing all what?"

He looked exasperated. "That Remy in there," he said, pointing his finger towards the massive Cullen home, "I don't know that Remy. I don't know who that was. Since when do you even talk to people? Never-mind let them touch you like that?"

"Ever since you started ignoring me."

"You can't hold that over my head forever."

"I can sure as hell try," I told him, voice sharp.

"Remy, listen. I can't do this anymore. I can't," Embry said, sighing. My eyes followed him. He was different than I had ever seen him. I wasn't as drunk as I could've been but looking at him made me feel like I could be. There was always something about him that I thought was beautiful but even though I was still carrying all that rage I felt towards him I kept thinking about it while he clenched his jaw. "I know I fucked up but I was just scared! I know that leaving was a really cowardly thing to do and I'm sorry but I would do anything to make it up to you."

"What are you so afraid of?" I asked, laughing a hollow laugh. "I don't get it! I don't know what you think I'm gonna do to you that you had to ignore me for so long!"

Embry sighed, tangling his finger in his hair and tugging at it. "It's not that you would do something to me. You wouldn't understand."

"Then make me understand! What was it? Explain it to me!" I yelled, throwing my arms behind me. "If you wanna make it up to me then stop being a coward and just tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Remy," he started, sharply inhaling and then dropping his arms by his side in defeat. He looked me in the eyes. "Remy Cree, I am so fucking in love with you. I am so in love with you in ways that you couldn't even understand. And there is nothing more terrifying to me than the idea of loosing you. The thought, it keeps me up at night. And I just, I don't know what to do about it! Because I don't ever want you to feel like I'm weighing you down or that-"

And I didn't care about what the fuck else he was going to say because my arms were around Embry Call's neck and my fingers were tangled the ends of his hair and my lips were pressed against his. And at first he was still against me but then, after a second, he leaned into me. Embry kissed me soft and gentle, and his fingers pressed into my shoulder blades, holding me close and but softly, like he was afraid he would break me. Everything about him was warm and I felt like I had melted into him. My mind was blank and I was on fire and completely enveloped in Embry Call.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i posted so many chapters today because i am the best.


	28. chapter twenty-eight: the garage

Bear tossed a rock up into the air, catching it just centimetres before it smashed back into his face. "Remy, I know you're my baby sister and I'm supposed to give you advice and everything, but I really don't wanna hear about you kissing Call."

I groaned, kicking and slamming my feet against the rusted metal of the old car. "Well, who am I supposed to talk about it with? I need advice. I don't know what to do."

I was pretty disappointed to realize that kissing Embry wouldn't immediately solve all of our problems. And we had a lot of problems. I didn't know what I thought would happen. It was nice to imagine that everything would just be fine, that all the conflicts we had faced together would just be dissolved, and we could just be Embry and Remy, Remy and Embry. Two stupid kids that just liked each other a whole lot. But we just weren't there yet.

And it made me feel totally knocked off my feet, completely clueless and completely dumbfounded. I didn't even know how to act around him anymore. And I kept asking myself questions I didn't like the answers to. The whole fabric of our relationship was in question. I didn't know if we were friends or something more and the idea of putting some arbitrary labels on each other repulsed me to my core. It felt unnatural and forced and the way I felt with Embry was the exact opposite.

"Why don't you just talk about it with Bobby? I'm sure she would have some great advice for you," Bear said, his head lying against the concrete wall in the parking garage. I wondered if that was comfortable for him and if rocks dug into his skin the same way they dug into

mine.

I rolled my eyes. "You don't wanna know the advice Bobby gave me."

Bear sat up, impossibly straight and with no struggle. "Ew, Remy, can we talk about literally anything else? Not to mention, he's probably listening right now."

I gave him a frown. "He's not listening," I asserted. Upon learning about the arrangement I had made with my undead brother, Embry insisted, without any room for argument, that he would be there when I saw Bear. He would drive me there and he would sit and wait for me, no matter how long I took. It was the first argument I had ever lost. "He promised me he wouldn't listen."

"Okay, well how about this. If it turns out he is listening, I get to kill him."

"You're not funny," I said, tone light, but the idea of Bear laying a hand on Embry was almost enough to make me dry heave. The hatred they had for each other, it was obvious. Embry tried to hide it, masking the disgust in his tone when he talked about what my brother had become and pretending the idea of me spending time with him didn't make him want to erupt. Bear didn't care as much. He never called Embry by his first name, and threatened to hurt him just about as often as he was brought up in conversation. And I knew it was natural and I couldn't prevent it but the venom they had for each other made me feel powerless, like I was trapped in a custody battle.

And I got so caught up in those thoughts that when Bear said to me, "Remy, what are you gonna do about college?" I almost fell off the top of the car.

My mouth went dry at the idea and I said, "What?"

Bear disappeared from my sight for a second and then appeared once more, standing in front of me. And I noticed that this was the closest he had been to me. "Look, Remy, I know you got out of Mom and Dad's place, and that's great. They suck at being parents. But they have your college fund all secured and ready to go, and I don't think they're gonna pay for school if you're disowned."

"Well," I started, feeling caught off guard and somewhat speechless. "I guess, I dunno, I guess I'll just apply to scholarships and try to get fees waived and just, hope it all works out," I told him with a shrug. "And I mean, worst comes to worst, I have the bakery job. I can try to pay my way through college or at least stay there until I can find a better job."

There was a pregnant pause. "Do you know how much college even costs?"

"Umm..."

He looked disappointed, face fallen. "Have you even thought this through?"

"No, not really," I told him. "Recently, I was just a bit distracted by the whole shape shifting wolves and you being dead but not actually a thing. College kinda seems unimportant compared to all of that."

Bear frowned. His eyes studied the downturned features of my face and he kept that frown on his face. "Kid, you gotta start thinking about this shit. I know you don't wanna end up like Mom and Dad," he said, and his words felt like a knife in between my ribs. "I'm not trying to be a dick here. I've just been thinking about you going to college this whole time I've been out in the goddamn woods."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought you couldn't remember me?"

"After I remembered," he said quickly. "Look, this stuff is important, Remy. I mean, what do you even want out of your future?"

It was a question I had never really ever considered. Before, I always thought about leaving. I thought about leaving the state and traveling and studying something useless out of state. But that didn't really seem like an option anymore. "I don't dream of labor," I tried to joke, but it fell flat. "I dunno, Bear, I guess I've never really thought about it? I hate working and school but I guess I like philosophy and stuff."

Bear sighed, disappointment heavy in his face and I felt like the air got punched out of my gut. "Can you think about it please, Remy? Just think about what you wanna do and we can talk about it and I can help you figure it out, alright?"

I nodded, giving Bear a sad smile.

Embry was leaning up against his car when I walked out of the parking garage. His arms were crossed and he had this scowl on his face that I knew would be threatening to someone else but to me it just looked kind of adorable. And I knew we were still technically in this awkward stage of not knowing where we stood but I couldn't help but stare in awe for a moment. Because I really, really liked Embry. And I thought I was kind of stupid for trying to deny it for so long when I realized how obvious it was. The harshness in his features drained when his eyes landed on me, scanning me for any injuries. "Hey," he said, a small smile playing on his lips, "you ready to go?"

I nodded, stopping just a foot in front of him. "Thanks for waiting," I said, eyes not entirely meeting his but settling on the curve of his lips.

"Of course," he said, voice dripping in that sincerity I had never really gotten used to.

And while we're standing there, aware of the thickness between us, there was a shout of, "Take care of my sister, you asshole!" that bounced off the trees and put that scowl back on Embry's face.

The car ride was off. There wasn't a tenseness between us; we weren't necessarily in any sort of disagreement between the two of us, but there was something sharp and pointed, hindering the way we spoke to each other. And I was sitting there in the passenger seat, staring off at the blur of trees and thinking about all the things I could say to Embry. I could tell him that I wanted him around and I missed him when he was gone and that I was tired of pretending to not care about him. There were a couple of times I opened my mouth to say those things but I shut it again because the words just wouldn't come out.

I've never thought about anything, ever. I just sort of did things. I would open my mouth and something would come out and I've rarely regretted anything. But with Embry, I had to be careful. I tossed the words around in my head and imagined them coming out of my mouth and pictured the way he would flinch or frown at the sound of them. Because I had already screwed up so many times by not thinking that I couldn't afford to do it again. It took me about three months to get to the point of admitting it, but I couldn't lose Embry Call.

The week Embry avoided me and my calls and my desperation (an action I still had no explanation for) was harder on me than it should've been. And I knew that it was just a week but from the way that week went, I felt like I wouldn't have ever been able to get over it. I would've obsessed over it, taking notes in a scrappy journal and looking for some sort of explanation for his disappearance. I was tethered to him, completely tangled up in Embry and I was done pretending to not like it.

While I was spinning around in all these thoughts, Embry said, "I want to tell you what imprinting is," and I whipped my head around towards him. It was a topic we were ignoring. Whenever it was brought up, Embry's face would fall and his hands would tighten up into fists. His voice would become strained and he'd beg me to just drop it.

"Okay," I said, eyes widened.

Embry let out a breath. "I don't know how to explain this to you," he started, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "And I want you to promise that no matter what happens and no matter what I say, you won't jump out of the car."

I nodded. "I promise."

"That day that you were at the beach, and we were up there cliff diving with Seth, you remember?" I nodded. "Jared ran down there to talk to you, and I don't know why, but I followed him. I didn't really know what was going on, other than the fact he didn't like you hanging out with Kim, but for whatever reason, I was drawn to you. I followed him down there, and listened to you guys argue. I wanted you to stay away from him, because I didn't want you getting hurt. Even then, I felt some urge to keep you safe. I couldn't explain it, really, I just thought it was because I felt bad for you because of everything that happened with your brother. And I dunno, I guess either I'm a huge coward or you're just really scary, but I just couldn't look you in the eye."

I smiled, thinking somewhat fondly of that memory and how simple everything seemed when my biggest problem was what a dick Jared was. Embry continued, "I thought about you a lot after that. It was really frustrating, because before that day on the beach, I never really thought about you. And I was scared to talk to you and there was a lot going on with Jared and everything. But when I found your journal, I dunno, I guess it was stupid but I thought it was a way to talk to you without talking to you. I never apologized for that, and I'm sorry I invaded your privacy like that."

"And then, Jared was freaking out about you being around Kim. And I followed him, half because I wanted to keep him in line and half because I was curious about you and that wave of protection I felt towards you. Besides, I always thought you were in the right in that situation. And then," he sighed, eyes straight on the road and not looking towards me, "you hit him. I knew he was gonna phase. That protective instinct kicked in and I just grabbed you and tried to get you away from him. Quil dragged Jared away, you pushed me off of you, and then, for the first time, I looked into your eyes."

I didn't realize I was holding my breath until Embry shot a glance my way and his eyes reminded me to breathe again. He smiled softly when he said, "That's when I knew. Everything just made sense. I looked in your eyes, and you became the single most important thing in the world to me. It was so overwhelming. It was just like, all at once, you became my whole world." Embry let out a breathy chuckle. "It knocked me on my fucking knees, Rem. I became tethered to you, unconditionally attached. I knew then, that for as long as I live, I would do anything for you. I would do anything to be near you. I would protect you with my life and I would make sure that no one would ever hurt you."

Embry stopped, briefly reaching over to run his thumb over the bust in my lip. "I'm not doing a good job," he whispered, pain evident in his voice. "That's when I imprinted."

My mouth was dry and my heart was beating in my throat. I stared at Embry, head buzzing and my fingers shaking. "So, imprinting is..."

"Imprinting is what happened when I looked at you. It's when one of us meets, in essence, our other half," he concluded.

I blinked. "Embry," I started, and then faltered. And I figured that I wouldn't be able to speak for a while because everything was choking up in my throat and I couldn't form any real thoughts. All I had was sensations; my gut all twisted up, my shaking hands, the dryness that spread throughout me and the way my whole body felt like it was short circuited. "I'm...I don't..." I shook my head. "I don't like that," I settled, spitting out the first thing that came to my lips.

"I knew you wouldn't," Embry said. "That's why I was so afraid to tell you, why I left. Seth just blurted out the term and I knew I'd have to tell you. It was stupid of me, but I just panicked. Being away from you, it physically hurts me. I mean, it goes both ways, so I'm sure you know what it's kinda like. It's just like, a million times worse for me. But I just figured that you'd tell me you never wanna see me again the second I told you about imprinting, and if I kept my distance from you, there was at least some hope you'd stay. I thought staying away would prevent the inevitable."

"Embry, I'm not gonna leave," I said, voice on the brink of breaking and a wetness in my eyes. "I just," I started, and then inhaled sharply. "Is that, is it the only reason you, like, feel how you said? Because of some weird magical occurrence?"

"No," he rushed out, shaking his head and putting a hand over my leg. "Remy, it's not like that at all. I mean, the imprinting, it didn't make me fall in love with you. That's not what it does, necessarily. It just sort of, centered my purpose in life around you. But I don't have to be in love with you for that to be true. I didn't fall in love with you all at once. It happened a day at a time. And I mean, even if this never happened, I still would've fallen in love with you. Because it's you that I care about. I've never met anyone like you."

Without thinking too much about it, I put my hand over his and squeezed. "I still don't like it. I don't want you to be unconditionally bound to me. I don't want you to not have any choice in your life over who you love and who you want to be around. I want you to be your own person, Em, and I don't wanna drag you along with my life because it hurts you to be away from me."

"It's not like that. I'm still me. I've never changed. If anything, being around you has made me happier and feel more like myself than ever. I still have my interests. I still have my friends. And now, I have you, which makes it so much better," he told me, voice gentle. "I used to think it was a bad thing, too. But I think it's just like, the wolf side of me just makes my instincts sharper. And my instincts are telling me that being with you will make me happy."

I chewed on my gums. "I don't know how to feel about this," I told him, looking down at the way our hands tangled up. "That's just, that's a lot. But," I said, exhaling, "I know that being away from you and fighting with you and ignoring you sucks a lot. And I just don't wanna do it anymore."

Embry twisted his hand around to squeeze my knee. "I don't know what happened to you," he joked. "A month ago if I had told you this you would've broken my nose."

"I dunno," I said, shrugging. "I guess I'm just tired of fighting. Being away from you sucks. And besides, having a werewolf boyfriend sounds pretty cool. No one's ever gonna be able to fuck with me ever again."

As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized exactly what I had just said and all the blood rushed to my cheeks. Instantly, I pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt down past my hands and covered my face. "Boyfriend?" Embry repeated, sounding smug.

I groaned into the fabric of my sweatshirt. "I can't believe I just said that."

Embry's hand moved to my back, rubbing circles over my shoulder blades with his thumb. I heard his muffled laughter. "Is that...is that what you want?"

I thought about jumping out of the car despite my promise. I couldn't form any more words so I just groaned more, drowning in my own embarrassment. "I dunno," I grumbled, wishing I could press myself into a tighter ball.

"Well, you did kiss me," he pointed out.

And I wanted to tell him that that was a heated and drunken moment and that this gentle and emotional conversation was far away from my comfort zone and the word boyfriend in itself made me sick. But I said the word so easily when describing him and that was rattling. "I can't believe this is happening right now."

"Hey, look at me," Embry demanded, and I raised my head slightly to see that he was grinning broadly at the road. He turned his head towards me slightly, "Remy, I would love to be your werewolf boyfriend."

Again, I groaned, and slid down in the seat. My knees his the dashboard and my neck buried into my chest and I said to him, "Fine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is anyone else obsessed with this story because i am. like i know i wrote it but i’m obsessed with it still that’s why i posted like five chapters today


	29. chapter twenty-nine: the cookie dough

I was trying to think of a more uncomfortable combination of people.

Wooden spoon in my mouth, I tried to come up with names, any group of people that would've caused this much tension. Any. But I was sandwiched between Bobby fucking Evans and Kim fucking Conway. And even worse than that, somehow, Leah Clearwater and Emily Young. And there was no single group of people with such a tangled and tense history.

Laughter almost bubbled at my throat at the idea that this was the first time I was the least volatile person in the room.

I scooped up another spoonful of cookie dough and shoved it in my mouth, liking the taste despite how sick it made me feel. I'd probably eaten half of one of the bowls at that point, so it made sense that Kim said, "Remy, stop eating the cookie dough."

Bobby raised her eyebrow and her lip. "Remy can eat whatever the fuck she wants." She sprung at Kim like she was waiting for an excuse to.

Kim was knotting her hands together like she was nervous and I thought that this was the longest she had ever been around Bobby and I couldn't imagine this conversation going well. "Yeah, but we're making the cookies for the guys?"

"You think I care about a group of men?" she asked with a snort.

"Well, maybe you don't, but I do," she asserted, taken aback. Kim had this habit of taking offense whenever there was the slightest implication that maybe someone didn't really care about Jared. I would know, it made me hate her for a while. "And so does Remy. And when you care about someone, you do something nice for them."

Bobby's voice was inflecting and her eyes rolled. She didn't like mine and Embry's progression into that boyfriend-girlfriend territory, especially after my adamant protesting against it. It still felt sticky and uncomfortable to me, though. "Right, cause if there's anything Remy's known for, it's her feminine instinct to cook for men."

Emily spoke up, "You guys really don't have to fight." I half felt bad for Emily. She invited us all into her home to bond over the act of baking, with good intentions in her heart. And instead of laughter and storytelling and confiding in each other she had hoped for, Emily got forty-minutes of silence while we tried to figure out how to make simple cookie dough and then this. The other half of me thought that she should've expected it.

"But they're always going to," Leah chimed in, arms crossed and leaning back in her chair, "I told you this is what would happen if you put them in the room together."

"I just wanted to give everyone the opportunity to, y'know, bond with each other," Emily said, desperation clear in her voice. I felt like there would have been a time when her pleading voice annoyed me but after everything I could understand her desire for peaceful resolutions. I was tired of the fighting and it sounded like she was too.

Bobby snorted. "Why do we have to bond? I don't wanna bond with Kim, she sucks."

"Well you're a bitch, Bobby," Kim suddenly snapped, and even I was surprised at the venom in her voice, even though it was shaking while she spoke. Kim had never been very brave.

Leah leaned forward. "Shut up, Kim."

Emily was frowning. "Can you seriously just try to get along?"

"She started it!" Kim shouted, trembling finger pointed sharply at Bobby.

"She started it!" Bobby mocked, arms crossed and voice hitched up an octave, before dropping it down to her usually raspy tone, "Shut up."

"Guys-"

"Emily, can you just give up on the whole mediator act?" Leah snapped, fingers gripping the edge of the table like she was ready to break it off. "You don't wear it well."

Emily flinched, offense worn clearly on her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I think she's implying that you're a little desperate to mend me and Kim's friendship because you couldn't mend your own with Leah," Bobby explained simply, leaning back in her chair casually, like she was disinterested. I knew Bobby pretty well at this point, though. She was loving it. I was shifting my weight around in my seat, though, thinking of the ways this situation could've been avoided. Leah was right, though; they only were to avoid it and keep them completely separate.

"I am not," Emily gasped, her face tightening up in annoyance.

"You definitely are," Leah said with a scoff."

But Emily raised her arms in frustration. "That's not even the same situation."

"Yeah, me and Bobby were never friends," Kim interjected, pout on her face as she glared at Bobby from across the table. "She's always been a bitch."

"Kim!"

"Right, and you've never had a personality and you abandoned your only friend for dick," Bobby snapped, her tone shifting. She was always volatile when it came to the deterioration of mine and Kim's friendship and I was totally sure why. "We're totally incompatible."

And Kim was on the brink of tears. "You don't even know what happened."

"I know that you were a bad friend."

"I know a thing about that," Leah mumbled, halfway under her breath but she definitely wanted everyone to hear. Embry told me a lot about Leah and how everyone viewed her, as bitter and angry but it sounded like it all came from a place of unbelievable pain. And I thought that maybe this was one of the first times Leah got to talk about that pain without the intrusive thoughts of a group of idiot boys.

"Leah, I thought we were moving past that?" Emily said in that pleading voice of desperation. And as bad as I felt for Leah, I felt bad for Emily too. What was she supposed to do? I knew what that painful hole felt like, and I knew how possessive and all consuming it was. She couldn't live her life like that, so what was she meant to do? It was a situation designed for failure and pain, and I knew a lot about that. My brother was undead and my boyfriend's purpose in life was to kill him.

"No, we are," she assured. "But it doesn't mean I'm forgetting."

"So you have to constantly bring it up?"

"Yeah, Bobby, do we have to constantly bring shit up?" Kim asked suddenly, shooting daggers at Bobby. I thought they might fight.

Bobby rolled her eyes and leaned closer towards Kim. "Because honestly, you don't deserve forgiveness and you don't deserve to move past what you did."

"It's not exactly your place to decide that. It's Remy's," Kim defended, sounding weaker.

"You know what, that's a great point, Kimberly," Bobby said with a grin, and then turned towards me. "Remy, what do you think?"

Everyone looked at me. They flicked their eyes towards me and let a silence fall over the room while they all stared and waited for an answer. And I didn't know what to say; I couldn't think of anything to say that would have any point or would quell the bickering. And it's not like I enjoyed it, either. There was nothing particularly amusing watching them argue. I loved Bobby, and there was still a part of me that really cared for Kim and wanted to see her happy. And watching Leah and Emily throw digs at each other was more painful than anything.

So after a moment of silence and shifting my eyes to meet the gaze of different people at the table. "I would like very much not to be here right now." I said, and then stood. "I'm gonna go wait outside for Embry, I think. So, um, yeah."

I didn't hear anyone speak again while I dragged my feet towards the screen door and settled on the porch. It was hot. It always gets hot so suddenly. Like, one day the rain is so ice cold it makes you sick and leaves you shivering for hours and the next the heat is hot and sticky and you can hear it buzzing in the trees. I never liked the summer and I never liked the way the heat made everything so unbearable. It was brutal. I liked the coolness of winter and running through the cold fog and letting it steal the air from my lungs. I liked the way my sweat would freeze against my skin and I liked the way everything seemed so still.

The dark wood of the porch is dry and harsh against the bottom of my thighs. Part of me always feels uncomfortable in this home, even when Sam wasn't home. I didn't like him and the way he looked at me. I was thinking that I wanted to go home but I thought that I couldn't go there without Bobby and I wondered what she was saying at that table. Emily was wrong, I thought, Bobby and Kim couldn't get along. They couldn't be friends. It was almost like it was against their nature, like trying to force magnets together. Bobby was sharp-tongued and quick-witted and she sniffed out weaknesses. Bobby was shiny and glossy. Kim was unsure and hesitant and blushing. Kim would flushed with indignation and she had the capacity to be softer and giddier than anyone I had ever known.

And I thought that sometimes cuts run too deep and they couldn't be stitched back up. I didn't that either Leah or Emily really did anything wrong and even still, there was something that happened between the two of them that was irreparable. I wondered what that must feel like and I wondered what it would take to ever come close to reaching that point of forgiveness. I thought that Leah must've really cared about Bobby.

I wanted to know more about her. Leah was guarded and she moved in ways that reminded me of Bear before the whole change happened. Sharp, unrelenting. I struggled to find the differences between them besides the obvious: whereas Bear was explosive and erupting, Leah was silent and poised. But there was something in her eyes that always put me on edge, just like his did.

There was another glaring difference between Bear and Leah, though, and that was that Leah Clearwater hated me. There was really no obvious reason why, I just knew that she did. And I thought that maybe it was simply because I was Embry's imprint or whatever. She didn't have a good history with that concept.

Imprint. It was strange. It didn't feel like something that came with the territory of shifting into a giant wolf to kill undead people made of granite. And the thought of it made me pick at the skin around my fingernails. Unconditional love for the rest of time. It made me wanna throw up.

Whooping ripped me from my thoughts. They emerged from the trees one by one, the whole lot of them. I was in no way accustomed to the concept of the pack. Every time I thought about it I felt stupid. But when they bounced out from the woods, laughing and tossing around loose insults, they sure as hell looked like one.

Paul came bounding towards me first, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. I liked Paul, he was a hell of a lot like me. I thought that maybe at one point he was friends with Bear, and he was the only person in the Olympic Peninsula that knew shit about Diogenes. "Hey, Cree! You get kicked out for almost burning down the kitchen?" He was annoying as hell, though.

He ruffled my hair as he walked past me, messing up my ponytail. "Talk shit about me again and I'm spitting on all your food, Lahote."

"Then Embry won't feel special when you do that for him," Paul said, faking concern as he headed into the house, ready to demolish some food.

"That's gross Paul!" Seth called, as he ran from the edge of the tree line straight for the door. He skidded to a stop next to me briefly, "Hey Remy. What'd you guys make?"

"Cookies."

Seth whooped, and then sprinted past me once more.

Jared was next, walking side by side with Sam. "How is it in there?" he asked, slight frown on his face. Me and Jared, it had gotten better. We talked sometimes, cordial and sometimes joking. It was sometimes easy to forget, when he cracked jokes and teased. But it could fade pretty quickly, disappear and come back like nothing had ever happened. And even though Jared and I could sometimes get along, he and Embry were still shaky, just as Kim and I were.

I shrugged. "Oh you know. Hell."

From Jared's side, Sam frowned. His gaze made me shift. "That bad, huh?"

Quil placed a large hand on Jared's shoulder. "You owe me ten bucks, dude," he reminded them.

Jared rolled his eyes and stepped past me, Sam in tow. "Whatever."

Quil sat beside me. "How are you not in there with a pig head on a stick?"

"I dunno. Guess I don't really care," I said, scanning the yard for any other sort of movement.

"Embry's out doing a quick perimeter run with Jake," Quil said, answering the question I had yet to ask. "Training with him was annoying as fuck today. Kid couldn't get his head straight. He was like, I hope Remy's okay. I wonder what Remy's doing. I miss Remy. Remy's legs look really nice in those shorts."

I balled my fist up and plunged it into Quil's arms. "Shut up, idiot. Don't tell me those things," I chided, face flushed. I didn't wanna know what Embry was thinking and I didn't want to know what he was thinking about me.

Rubbing his arm, Quil laughed. "Seriously, though, Remy. I'm happy for you two. God knows you gave him hell, but I think you guys are gonna be great together." He pursed his lips and titled his head. "Actually, you're definitely gonna be great together, cause like, fate and shit."

"Eloquent."

"Nah, Remy, for real," he said, smiling slightly, "Embry's good for you. I don't even know if you notice, but you've changed in like, a really good way. You don't look like you'll rip off the head of anyone who gets too close to you anymore. You smile sometimes."

I blew out air from my cheeks. "I might have to call it then. Last thing I want is people approaching me."

Quil rolled his eyes at me. "Whatever, drama queen. I know you're happy. Just let me know if he steps out of line, though. I'll gut him."

"Whatever," I said as Quil stood and shuffled into the house, patience with me run out and desperate for food. Embry's never-ending appetite made more since to me after I met the rest of them.

I sat there, twisting my fingers together as I waited for Embry, knots in my stomach. Everything felt so weird and new and unfamiliar. I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what anything meant. I didn't know how to have a boyfriend. But I knew that I liked being around Embry and I liked holding his hand and I didn't want to do that with anyone else and the idea of him doing it with anyone else made me want to break a lot of things. So I guessed it was fine.

It was like I could sense him before he even stepped into my line of vision. My back straightened out and a smile involuntarily spread on my face. He made me so soft.

Embry pushed through the branches, smiling just like I was. He was really just pretty. Wide smile and clear skin and a glint in his eyes that made my heart hammer. I had always felt this way around him but ever since I had given into it, everything was amplified. Embry rushed over to my side, pulling me tight into his side and planting wet kisses on the side of my face. And I giggled. "I missed you," he said in between kisses.

"So I heard," I said, still laughing as I gently pushed his face away, but not before giving him a quick peck on the lips. Kissing him was weird. It felt like something I wouldn't ever get used to. "Quil's not really good about keeping your thoughts to himself. I'm glad you like my shorts, though."

Arms still around me, he dropped his forehead to my shoulder, groaning. "Should I kill him? I think I'll kill him."

"That'd be a sight."

Embry looked up at me again. And whenever he looked at me, there was something in his eyes, something so coated in adoration and love, that I felt transfixed. I couldn't believe that i didn't see it before. "How was your day baking?" he asked, slight teasing tone in his voice.

I shrugged. "Probably worse than your day."

He blinked. "We have to fight and kill an army of extremely powerful newborn vampires that are trying to kill Bella Swan and her boyfriend's entire family."

"Well that doesn't sound that bad," I said, slightly humming. "You should try sitting in that kitchen for ten minutes."

Embry turned his head around to look into the house for a moment. "No, you're right that sounds worse."

I rested my against his shoulder, nuzzling in closer to him. "You're gonna be safe though, right? Fighting all the baby vampires?"

He chuckled. "Yeah, we'll be fine. We'll be back before dark and then we can finally watch Ladybird together."

"I hate that movie," I groaned.

"Not when you watch it with me, you won't."

"Why, will there suddenly be a plot when I watch it with you?"

"There is no plot, that's the point. Things don't have to adhere to a traditional storytelling structure, Remy."

I laughed. "How was training today?"

"Well," Embry started, kicking his legs out, "as you can imagine, it is super fun to be around a bunch of my mortal enemies as we plot to wage war."

"That sounds fun," I mused. "Why didn't Leah have to go?"

"Sam's really easy on Leah," he explained, fingers tracing over the skin on my collarbone. "She convinced him it would be better for her to stay home and make sure you guys were safe. And I mean, he basically lets her do whatever she wants, cause of the guilt and everything."

"What the hell would Leah need to protect us from?" I asked, trying to imagine anything that could've happened that would've required intervention.

"Punk ass vampires. Each other."

"She didn't really do a good job, then," I said, chuckling slightly. "I thought that maybe she was gonna lunge across the table and throttle someone."

Embry frowned. "I think Leah's extra on edge today. She's gonna tell Bobby."

"Tell Bobby what?" I asked, and then when it hit me, my gut sank. "Oh, oh god no."

"Yeah."

I groaned, dropping my face in my hands. "She's gonna kill me when she finds out I knew and didn't tell her."

Embry laughed. "No she's not."

"She's at least gonna try."

And I wasn't sure if Embry knew he was lying when he said, "I think Bobby has the capacity to be understanding. She's gonna get why you didn't say anything."

But I knew better. "I'm gonna be so embarrassed if Bobby ends up being the one to kill me. Her hands are so small."

"Oh, come on, give her a chance to be-"

He was cut off by the sound of the screen door creaking open and then slamming shut. Bobby's long, silky hair caked in cookie dough, and her clothes and face were coated in a thin layer of flour that floated around her while she stormed out into the front yard. Bobby turned and looked at me and Embry. Her fists were balled up by her side, shaking. "Remy, I'm gonna go home before I commit war crimes. I'll see you later," she said, voice huffed and strained, and she stormed off towards her car.

I gave Embry a knowing look. "She's gonna kill me."

Embry shifted his weight around. "Well, I mean, if you're that worried about your safety and everything, you could always spend the night at my place."

My mouth immediately went dry. "You mean, like, stay over? For the night?"

"Well, like, yeah I mean," he stumbled, "if you want to."

I looked away, desperate not to reveal the flush in my cheeks. "Maybe next time."

Sometimes, late at night, when Embry was patrolling, Bear would come and see me. He would scale the side of Bobby's house like some sort of horrifying creature from a John Carpenter movie.

I was awake, anyways. Bobby wasn't home and it was well past midnight and I didn't know if that meant Leah's big reveal went really well or really terrible and it left me feeling knotted up and electrified with nervous energy. And I figured I was happy for Bobby, and Leah too, that their relationship was going so well that Leah could tell her. But I had no idea what was going to happen. Bobby could be kind of unpredictable, and there was really no way to tell someone's reaction to their significant other transforming into a giant wolf.

So I was grateful for the distraction.

"You're different," Bear said to me, sitting a few feet away from me with his back upright against the foundation of Bobby's house.

I scoffed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He shrugged. Bear was different, too, more astute. He noticed things. He never really did when he was human. Bear always lived too deep in his own head to notice the world around him. Now he noticed when I shifted at the different inflection of his words or when I had to fight the urge to chew up my lip. "You're just different."

Frowning, I uprooted a weed growing against the house and threw it towards the woods. "Yeah, but different how?"

Bear didn't move. He kept his jaw locked tight and he stared straight ahead. "I don't like what they did to you, Remy. You're not the same person I knew."

I raised an eyebrow. "What, now that I'm happy?" I snapped. "Am I only myself when I'm too depressed to eat?"

He still didn't move. His shoulders didn't rise and fall with heavy breaths like they used to. Anger crept up my throat. Bear didn't even breath anymore and he thought he could chastise me for being different. "Why do you think you're happy now? Because you have a boyfriend? Because you spend all your time with your friends? You think those things make you happy?"

"Yeah, typically those are the types of things that make people happy, Briah."

"They're just band-aids, Remy. You know that."

Something flared in my chest. "You're not making any sense."

He shook his head, still not looking over in my direction. "You're just using them as a distraction, Rem. Because even though you think you're happy to be around Call and Bobby and everyone, you still haven't talked to Mom and Dad in what? Like a month? That's not an unresolved problem, Remy. You need your parents, no matter how shitty they are."

I swallowed the spit that pooled up under my tongue, throat suddenly feeling sticky. "I thought you were glad I got away from them."

"I would be, if you had any plans to be independent. I mean, fuck Remy," he exclaimed, suddenly loosing his cool and whipping his head towards me, "I had to sell the dirtiest drugs I could find just for a chance to get away from them and to be on my own. And look, I am glad that you're not in their house anymore, but now you're just living out of someone else's palm. What are you gonna do when Bobby's parents decide they don't want you in their house anymore? Or when they move away? Do you know what you're gonna do?"

"I-well, I'll figure something out, if that happens. Alright? I have a lot of people who care about me and no one's gonna let me fall flat on my ass, alright?"

"What, so you'll go live with your boyfriend who's mom hates you? What if he dumps you?"

I wanted to break something. "He won't."

"You've been dating for less than a week."

My head was spinning and I stood, wishing Bear was human so I could hit him. "What are you trying to get at here, Bear? Huh? Trying to make me feel like shit for what?"

Bear frowned. "I'm not trying to hurt you," he said, gently. "I just want you to think about this, alright? It's things you have to considered to cover your ass. And honestly," he said, and then paused for a moment and then said, "I have an idea. A solution, so you don't have to worry about any of this stuff anymore. And you can just exist without having to worry about getting kicked out or money for college or any of that."

I cross my arms, frowning down at Bear. "What?"

But before he could answer, there was a sound from the woods. Shuffling and snapping and I saw Embry, the wolf version of him, massive and imposing at the tree line. He was snarling, a chilling sound that almost made me run. But it wasn't for me, it was for my brother. Bear knew this too. He frowned. "That's my cue to go," he said, standing. "We'll talk about this next time. Love you, kid," he said, and before I could open my mouth, he was gone.

The anger drained from me once he was gone, and I turned back to find Embry, to probe him for answers. But Embry had disappeared, too, and I didn't see him for the rest of the night.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m posting so many chapters because every time i get a new comment it’s like shooting serotonin directly into my brain. i love y’all


	30. chapter thirty: the ants

I was never the type of girl to wear a dress. I was the girl on the playground with scraped up knees and ponytails that were always flying out of the tie and the girl who stole her brother's old clothes because her mother kept buying her pink little skirts that were hard to run in. I was the type of girl to cut holes in her jeans and cut her hair short with a pair of kitchen scissors. I was the type of girl who watched the other girls with glittery eyes and lace dresses and wonder what it was like to feel comfortable enough to twirl around in their billowing skirts.

So when I stood in front of the mirror with a borrowed dress, I kept tugging down on the bottom of it, wondering what kind of transformation I had gone through for me to even consider being one of those girls.

My hair was longer than it had been in a while; I forgot to cut it and most days I didn't really ever consider it unless it was falling in my face. And it hung down low on the soft white fabric that draped over me. I didn't feel like myself.

And I thought that I hadn't felt like myself in a while. I wasn't really sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing but I knew that it was a true thing. The transformation of Remy Cree was an objective truth, and the proof was the lace skirt that brushed against the middle of my thighs.

These pretty girls, with their dresses and their pouty lips and their softness, I didn't have anything against them. I didn't think I was better than them because I found myself in bruised knuckles and busted lips against shots of rum instead of gold necklaces hanging over low cut corsets and heels pointed three inches off the ground. They were them and I was me and that was fine. But now I was venturing into their territory, dipping my toes into flowery perfumes and strawberry lipgloss and I didn't know how to swim in it.

But I knew that, for the first time in my life, I wanted to be desirable. I wanted to be looked at with glossy eyes and I wanted to make his hands clammy and I didn't think the jeans that hung loose around my legs and my father's old flannels would make his heart beat just a touch faster.

I didn't know what I was doing. I kept staring at myself, at the body that looked strange in a dress. My awkward angles and pointy ends didn't blend well in the soft lace. I bit down on my lip, staring at the Remy Cree in the mirror. There were remnants of harshness that used to define me, the slight crookedness of my nose; the yellow bruise that almost disappeared from my face; the cut on my lip that wasn't ready to heal; the freshness of my hand right out of the cast.

I wondered what my brother would think if he saw me standing there in a dress, examining and criticizing and tearing myself apart. I wondered if he would tell me I was weak and that I wasn't the Remy Cree that I was before. I would tell him that I knew that; I knew that I wasn't the same and that I didn't know how to cope with it and that his constant berating didn't help and I would tell him that maybe this is who I would've been if he wasn't always shoving boxing gloves in my hands and gifting me knives that I tucked into my socks, concealed and unseen.

I wished I was different. I wished there were smoother curves to my body and I wished the bones in my knees didn't look like they were going to slice my skin open at every bend. I liked that I was strong but I didn't like the way my muscles were tight against the skin in my arms and in my legs and I didn't like the way they gave me imposter syndrome in the dress.

Twisting around, tilting, and leaning up on my toes did nothing to change the way I felt in the dress and it did nothing to change the way I wanted to feel in the dress. I wanted to be more like Bobby. I wanted to be soft skin under soft dresses with soft long hair and I wanted to be desired. And even though Bobby was lost in the world of her own head, she was aware of the looks of longing that were thrown her way while she danced around in this lace little dress and she was aware they were partly responsible for the confident pout in her lips.

Insecurity never used to weigh me down like this. I was comfortable being Remy Cree and I never had to doubt that or doubt who Remy Cree was. I didn't care about the way I looked but I cared about the way people looked at me with fleeting glances, like they were scared to get caught with their eyes on me. Now I was lost in the want of being wanted and the need to be formidable. The Remy Cree in torn sweatpants whispered in my ear and told me that I would always be the Remy Cree in torn sweatpants, dripping with sweat and hands wrapped up in bandages. I would never be soft and I would never be desirable in a lace white dress.

With a resigned sign and my teeth sunk deep into the flesh of my cheek, I pulled the dress over my head and settled on something that felt just a little more cutting.

Embry noticed. He noticed the weigh the doubt weighed on my shoulders and how it held my tongue down. He kept shooting me glances of concern while he walked with a picnic basket held of his head and the sun beating down on him. "You're thinking about something dumb."

I quirked an eyebrow while I dragged my feet over tree roots and dead leaves. "What?"

"You always make that face before you say something dumb," he explained, walking steady with the weight over his head. "You always frown and stare at the ground and then ask me something dumb, like whether or not I'm getting bored of you or if I think you're too needy."

My cheeks were hot. "Those aren't dumb questions," I mumbled. He heard me anyway. Embry always heard me.

"They're pretty dumb questions," he shot, not looking back in my direction. And I wished that Embry's confidence in how he felt about me and the continuous reassurance had any sort of impact on the way I thought of myself in the dress.

My eyebrows scrunched together. I didn't know exactly how relationships worked or what made them work and my only example of one was the failure of my parents, but I thought that I was supposed to, at the very least, talk about the things that upset me. But the face of my brother, calling me weak and calling me different, made me think that maybe keeping things to myself was the better option.

But Embry called back to me, "Y'know I can practically hear you thinking, Rem," and I thought that hiding anything from him, thoughts included, might be impossible.

My eyes were still focused hard on the ground. "Oh, I was just thinking about how I have no idea what I'm doing," I admitted, figuring that to be a good jumping point.

"Like, right now? Or in general?" he teased.

"In this relationship."

This made him stop. He stopped, turned to me and titled his head, balancing the picnic basket like it was nothing. "What do you mean?" he asked, voice suddenly serious as his eyes locked onto mine.

I shrugged. "I dunno," I told him, eyes flickering away and looking at anything but him. "I guess I just don't really know how to be a girlfriend. I kept like, doubting myself, and stupid shit like that."

"Like what?" he prodded gently.

"Like, things to tell you and what to wear and, like, how pretty I look," I said, voice barely above a whisper and warmth creeping up my neck and onto my cheeks. "Things I just never really thought about before."

There was a moment where Embry said nothing. And then, "If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea what I'm doing, either. And I actually think about those things too. Like, normally I just throw on whatever clothes I find on the floor. But this morning? Holy shit, it took me forever. And do you see what I'm wearing?" he asked with a slight laugh, gesturing towards his very plain shirt and very plain shorts. "This took me like twenty minutes to pick out. Twenty minutes, Rem."

I chuckled, a smile staying firm on my face. "That genuinely makes me wonder what your other options could have been."

He smiled softly at me for a moment, before placing the picnic basket down by his feet and taking one big stride towards me, wrapping me in his arms. "And I get nervous to tell you how pretty you look. I think I'm like, still afraid you'll hit me or something. But you always look really, really pretty."

With my flushed cheek pressed against his chest, I rolled my eyes. "I'm not gonna hit you, dumbass."

Embry pulled away, giving me a soft kiss on my forehead before returning to the picnic basket and I thought that he might've looked as flustered as I felt. Still, he led me down the same path as before.

I didn't know where we were going or what was in the picnic basket and I thought that it better be something pretty spectacular to justify the amount of bug bites popping up all over my calves. And, on a lesser level of importance, it was not only our first date together, but each of our first dates ever. I didn't know what to expect but Embry seemed pretty intent on planning everything all on his own.

"I guess I must be doing a pretty good job, though, because Leah's been asking me for advice," he mused after a few seconds more of walking, sounding somewhat pleased with himself.

The thought of Leah approaching Embry, clueless and desperate, made me laugh. "No offense, but what the fuck is Leah Clearwater doing asking you for advice?"

"I dunno. I guess she figured since you know Bobby really well, and I know you really well, that I could be the most reliable resource she could find."

"Um," I started, scrunching up my nose, "Leah couldn't just come straight to me? Right to the source?"

Embry whipped his head around to shoot me a glance. "You don't have a telepathic connection with her."

"Huh. Is it weird that I'm kind of jealous?"

"And besides, you never had to deal with the actual explanation. I did, and it sucked. And then at least Leah could learn from my dumbass mistakes."

I kicked a rock with the edge of my shoe. I remembered, and I didn't really think it was Embry's fault that I used to doubt half the words that came out of his mouth. "So what happened?"

"Well, apparently," Embry started gracefully stepping over roots while he held the basket in place, "Leah didn't tell Bobby last night like she planned. Cause I guess she was gonna tell her before things got too serious, because she wanted to give Bobby a chance to like, opt out. But then Sam found out and was like, raging. He and Leah got into this huge argument over it. Paul heard the whole thing. I guess Sam and the elders don't want anyone who doesn't have to know, knowing, and Bobby doesn't really have to know. Cause like, she's not an imprint or anything. Leah was pissed, because like I said, Sam just usually kinda lets her do whatever she wants."

"You're such a gossipy bitch," I told him as leaves crunched under my feet and I kept my head down, watching where I stepped. "Why does Leah wanna tell her so bad?" I asked.

"Cause when Sam first phased, he ended it with Leah and never told her what was happening and then the whole imprinting thing with Emily happened. God knows how fucking catastrophic that was. So Leah thinks that if she doesn't tell Bobby everything it'll damage their relationship and she wants to be totally honest about what she does and what could happen." The more I learned about what happened between Leah and Sam, the more I understood why she was the way she was. "And I mean, it's kind of a hard thing to hide."

"I dunno," I said, kicking rocks, "You did manage to hide it from me for a few months."

Embry scoffed. "Yeah, but you thought I was Bigfoot, Remy."

"Whatever."

"Anyways," he continued, "Paul said that Leah accused him of some really low-blow things. Like that Sam was doing this shit on purpose because he didn't want to see Leah happy and that he still held onto the idea that he could have Emily and Leah."

I never really cared for Sam Uley or had any sort of positive opinion of him or any interest in ever interacting with him, but that was an action I wouldn't expect out of him. He seemed like a rigid code of honor type guy, not like someone who collected girls. "Is he?"

"No, no way," Embry said quickly and confidently. "I mean, I can't imagine wanting to even look at another girl-"

"Good."

"-and Sam and Emily have been together for a while, too. Sam still cares about Leah, as like a person, but never like that. Leah was just mad and thought it would make him upset, and it did. Paul also said that Sam is super upset because apparently he talked to Emily about it and Emily actually agreed with Leah. So then, this morning when I was on patrol, Sam kept thinking about all the ways he could go about it, but it doesn't sound like he's gonna let Leah tell Bobby, and that's what I told Leah. So I just relayed the memo."

"Why does Leah have to do what Sam says again?"

There was a shift in Embry's tone, sounding just a little bit resentful. "Because he's the alpha. We all have to do whatever he says. That was also something else Leah attacked him over, saying that he has no right to tell her what to do in her personal life since he put her through a lot of shit. Quil said Leah was already trying to think of ways to go over his head while she was on her way to meet up with Bobby last night. No one really knows what's been going on with her since then."

"You are such a gossipy bitch," I repeated.

"Hey, it's not my fault I constantly know everyone's business, or that I can't keep my mouth shut. That's just how I was born."

"Sure," I said with a slight laugh. "Are we almost there? I feel like I've lost half of my blood to these fucking bugs."

"Oh, did I forget to bring bug spray?"

"Yeah, jackass, you forgot to bring bug spray."

"Oops."

The sun was beating down on us like we were living somewhere other than the dampest place in the country. And I thought that the sun had been so brutal that maybe all the moisture that soaked into everything was all dried up.

Embry led me down the path for a while, seemingly unphased by the heat and by the weight he carried over his head and laughed while I complained. The forest was quiet, except for the buzzing of the bugs and the cracking of leaves and twigs under my feet. And after another couple of minutes, the trees started to thin out and the dirt blended in with the boulders that hung over the ocean. The breeze lifted my hair and cooled me off and I stared in awe as the sun hung over us. I had never really ventured up here, and I never realized how beautiful it really was. The constant motion of the ocean as it stretched out into the horizon had me memorized as Embry spread out a blanket over the cliff. "Pretty solid, right?" he asked, smoothing out the edges.

I stepped out from under the trees and I thought I could taste the ocean water from the wind that blew my hair behind me. "It is really pretty out here."

Embry grabbed my hand and pulled me down to sit next to him. He threw an arm over my shoulder and pulled me tight into his side. His favorite spot for me. "You have no idea how fucking stoked I am to be on this date with you right now."

Laughing, I placed a kiss on his cheek. "I think I have a general idea."

He laughed, eyes somewhere distant as he looked out over the horizon. "Do you remember that time you were in my group like, I dunno, in eighth grade, for some history project?"

I snorted. "No." I didn't remember ever having any sort of interaction with Embry before he dragged me into this weird reality of his. "But I'm sorry for whatever you're about to tell me I did."

"Oh my god, you were so mean," he recalled with a laugh. "We were supposed to be doing some project onlike tribal law, and I offered to like, put everything together on the poster board and you said, Why, so you can be lazy and not actually do any of the work? And then told me that if I didn't do my fair share of the work you'd break my fingers. I've been scared of you ever since."

"Actually, I take it back. I'm not sorry for that."

Embry rolled his eyes at me. "Figures."

"I thought I was hot shit in eighth grade," I told him, thinking of the times when my arms were skinnier and I walked around with bandages over unharmed skin so people would think I had injuries from fights I didn't have. "Bear had just started teaching me out to box. I beat up someone for the first time."

"Did they deserve it?"

I titled my head. "Yeah, I'd say so. It was this girl who just moved to Forks from Seattle and she was at First Beach with her friends and she was like, throwing trash everywhere and being really obnoxious. I didn't really give a shit, but Kim told her to knock it off and she was just being like, really fucking mean to Kim. So I just," I made a whooshing noise as I gently slammed my fist into my open palm. "She went home crying, and then I never saw her again."

Embry smiled. "Has anyone ever told you that your unwavering loyalty is a little bit intimidating?"

"No, but people have called me Kim's guard dog before," I said with an eye roll. "That was always annoying as hell."

He chuckled. "Yeah, I know what you mean. All the Cullen's call us dogs. I'm pretty sure Bella does too, when we're not around. I don't really trust her."

Half of me was absolutely overjoyed at the idea of Embry expressing something negative about Bella Swan and the other half of me was swelling with anger at the idea of some white colonizer vampires calling Embry and my cousin and even the people I would loosely call my friends dogs. "That's racist as shit."

"I know!" Embry exclaimed. "I got into an argument with Jacob over it, because he said Bella called him a dog once and I was like, dude, that's racist as hell, and he was like, No, Bella only says it cause her bloodsuckers say it. Like, yeah, and they say it cause they're racist."

"I mean, that would make sense, wouldn't it? Cause weren't they all born in nineteen-dickedy-six?"

"I mean," Embry started, taking his arm off my shoulders and moving to set up the picnic food. "I mean, yes, but also, recently Jake just found out that one of them used to like, be a fucking Confederate solider. Not even like a soldier, like a high-ranking official, or whatever."

I thought my eyes might bulge out of my head. "You're fucking joking."

Embry shook his head, pulling out cheese and crackers, grapes, and arranging them nicely on a small little platter while he talked. I ate three slices before he even finished putting them out. The hike had me starving. "There's really nothing good about them, I think. Like the more I find out about them, the more I dislike them. I mean, they could move anywhere in the world, do anything they want, and they chose to come here, the one place in the world where they know their presence isn't wanted."

With my mouth full of crackers, I frowned. I knew that Embry didn't really mind this life, but I also knew that he was only seventeen, with an enormous weight put on his shoulders and he was right. Every time he spoke about that family, I hated them more too. "Yeah they fucking suck. But, you should be just a little bit grateful for them. Cause like, you know I'm only dating you cause you're a werewolf."

"You're joking right?" he asked with a grin.

"Nope," I told him with a coy smile. "Honestly, it's at least sixty percent of the appeal. And even then, it'd be way cooler if you were like, a bear."

Embry scrunched up his face like this was the most horrible, most offensive thing I could've ever said to him. "A fucking bear? C'mon on, Remy, that's just disrespectful."

"Honestly, a bear would probably body you. I would not bet against a bear."

He chose to ignore this statement and instead circled back around to my original one. "Why wouldn't you date me if I couldn't shift into a wolf? Which are, for the record, three hundred times cooler than bears."

"Otherwise you'd be too wimpy for me."

This almost made his eyes bulge out of his head. "Wimpy? You're fucking joking, Rem."

"Well you're not wimpy now. But you absolutely were before," I teased. "With your skinny ass arms. And you know what, even now, you're not that tough."

He pinched the side of my thigh and said, "Now I'm gonna kick your ass."

I giggled. "You probably can't even throw a punch right. I bet you twenty-bucks that you're totally relying on all your wolf boy strength."

Embry stared at me for a moment with narrowed eyes before abruptly standing. "Alright then," he said, extending his hand towards me. I took it and he practically threw me in the air so I was standing directly across from me. "Teach me how to punch."

"Paul's gonna tear you a new one when he finds out you had your girlfriend teach you how to punch."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever, just show me."

"Okay then, make a fist," I instructed. Embry balled up his fingers and I almost burst into laughter at the way he tucked his thumb under his index and middle finger and had it sticking out over his ring finger. "You're gonna break your fingers like that," I told him, grabbing his hand and rearranging the way he held his hand. And I tried not to get distracted by the warmth in his hands. "Keep your thumb here or your gonna break it off."

Embry chuckled. "See, I'd know this if I had a dad."

My mouth twisted up in a sour smile. "Don't make me laugh while I'm trying to teach you how to fight. Let me see a jab," I told him, holding up both of my hands on either side of my shoulder. "Do it gently, though, it would be so annoying if you accidentally killed me."

"That's not really the word I would go with, but alright," he replied, and then stanced up, his knees slightly bent and shoulders hunched over. It was actually almost alright, but I kicked his left foot out a little bit straighter and he, very slowly extended his fist to connect with my palm.

We did this for a bit. I'd move my hand and he'd switch his swing to hit it; left jab, right jab, uppercuts, lowercuts, hooks. And we'd follow this pattern until it kept going faster and faster and he was getting a little bit too into it; laughing while his swings got so fast his hit would land before my hand could get there. And even though I was struggling to keep up with him, his movements were still gentle, careful and calculated so there wasn't even a chance he could hurt me on accident.

So I started switching up the pattern to mess him up.

It worked. He'd go for the right uppercut and I'd be asking for a left hook. Embry noticed this and switched his path. "You're cheating."

"This is boxing, Embry," I told him with a smile on my face. "Your opponents are not gonna be moving in a pattern. You gotta be ready for whatever move is next."

A grin grew on his face, and in the spirit of that sentiment, when I lifted my right hand for a jab, he grabbed my wrist and pulled me into his chest and before I could make sense of what was happening his lips were on mine and I was dizzy. He always made me dizzy.

The warmth of his skin immediately spread through my entire body and I molded to him like I was meant to be there, with my hands tangled in his hair and with his tongue tracing along my bottom lip. He was sweet and he tasted like grapes and when I kissed him either I couldn't breathe or I forgot to but my mind was blank.

Kissing him was like overdrive. I couldn't think of anything but his softness and his warmth and the way his hands held tight onto my arms and how he never moved from that spot because he was afraid of overstepping any boundaries of mine.

And when he pulled away their air flooded my lungs again and I was left panting, staring into his eyes and wondering how I could ever feel anything towards him other than complete adoration and I thought that maybe there was a chance that I was in love with Embry Call.

"Umm," I started after a moment of silence, "there are ants all over the cheese."

"Oh fuck!"

* * *

Embry took my face in his hands and pressed a kiss against my forehead. "You remember the rules, right?"

"Yes. Rip out all of my teeth with pliers and open my mouth really wide so I get drenched in the blood."

He frowns, holding my face so firmly my cheeks smoosh together. "I'm serious, Remy. What are the rules?"

I sighed. Embry took my safety too seriously. I guessed that was fine, though, considering it was usually one of the furthest things from my mind. He had drilled these rules so deep into my head that they turned into a little song I sang while I was bored. "Stay ten feet away at all times, don't bite my cheek, check the ground for needles, broken glass, sharp rocks, and if anything seems like it's about to go wrong, yell your name at the top of my lungs."

Embry leaned forward and placed a kiss on the center of my forward. "Thank you." He dropped his hands from my face and shoved them deep into his pockets. I could feel his nerves from here. He was never comfortable with the idea of me spending time alone with my brother, but he respected and trusted me enough to let me go in there once a week and be on my own with him and I think that that was enough to prove that he really did love me, and just not because of the imprint. Because, from what I've come to understand, it's the human part of him that drives me here and waits for me politely waits for me. And that human part is in constant battle with the wolf part, the possessive, overly protective part that wants to lock me in a safe room until all threats to me were dead. I liked the human part better. "Have fun, Rem."

Smiling, I leaned up to my toes and placed another quick kiss on his lips. "Don't give yourself a heart attack out here, alright?" I told him, grinning, before turning on my heel and heading into the abandoned parking lot.

Seeing Briah was tense. Because it was the first time in our lives that we weren't on the same level. Me and my brother, we were always a team. We were a team against our parents and we were a team against the police and we were a team against the rest of the world. And now, for the first time, there was something deeply wedged between us. I kept telling myself that it was more than just Embry, that it was more than just the simplicity of them being natural born enemies. But there was something nagging inside of me that made me think Briah thought I had chosen someone else over him.

And that wasn't what happened. I wasn't choosing anyone over anyone else, but Briah definitely wasn't happy about the way our visits were supervised and how clear it was that no one trusted him around me.

It briefly crossed my mind that Bear might've been jealous. He may have been jealous of the fact that I had life and a future and endless opportunities for growth and he was stuck in a moment in his life when he was forced to act older and bigger and stronger than he actually was. And he looked at me, skipping classes and kissing a boy and shooting rum in a home that wasn't my own and thought that I was giving up everything he wanted.

All of these thoughts rushed through my head during the walk from Embry's arms to the entrance of the empty parking lot and when I stepped under the shade of the abandoned building all the rushing thoughts drained and all I could feel with the wrongness of the place.

It hit me all at once. There was something thick and sweet in the air that felt uncomfortable against my skin. I wandered in deeper, taking careful and hesitant steps. Bear was usually visible, sitting on top of an old abandoned car or standing on the edge of the walls. He was never late, he was always there ready to talk to me and ready to encourage me to go to college and to insult my boyfriend.

And I was standing there in the middle of the parking lot, wondering if I should wander up to the higher levels and explore and see if he was there or if I should go back to the car when I saw her.

I recognized her immediately, her fiery curls hanging still. I didn't know where she came from. One second there was nothing and the next there was her. She stared at me, her eyes bright red like Bear's were and for a moment, I was frozen. Shocked and unmoving. But when it hit me that she was like Bear and what that meant and in a shaky voice I yelled, "Embry!"

I counted to five and he was there, standing next to me in a form I wasn't quite used to, over my head and growling. His claws dug into the cracks in the concrete and he pointed his ears back, teeth snarling and fur standing up on his back.

The red woman titled her head, and as soon as she was there, she was gone.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i think i’m gonna take a break from posting for the weekend.


	31. chapter thirty-one: the gloves

Embry had to wonder if this was what Remy felt like all the time.

He could feel the rage bubbling up inside him. Tensing his muscles, tightening his throat and clenching his fists so hard his nails drew blood from his palm. He was gonna lose it. He was gonna lose it more than he had already lost it. For the first time in his life, he wanted to hurt someone. He wanted to track down Briah and slam his nose into the concrete until it cracked off. He wanted to make him pay but he couldn't, so instead he balled up his fist and flung it as hard as he could into the wall of this stupid fucking parking garage. His fist left a deep indent, crumbled pieces of the wall falling to the ground while the broken bones in his hand healed and adjusted. He couldn't even feel it.

Rage wasn't quiet. It rang around in his ears, fuzzy and deafening. Embry didn't know what to do and he didn't know what to think. The only thing in his head was the fantasy of Briah cowering before him. This anger, so heavy and so thick, was unfamiliar and new. But it was something he slipped into easily. He was about to lose it, perplexed at the realization that he hadn't already.

And the intensity of his desire for violence was so consuming that for a second, he forgot about Remy. He forgot that she was standing behind him, leaning against his car, shaking and confused and maybe even scared and he didn't think about what it was like for her to watch him contemplate killing her brother. Embry would've killed him, if he was there. He would've done it without a second thought. Because Briah did the one thing that was absolutely unacceptable to do, and that was put Remy in danger. He didn't know why and he didn't know how. All he knew is that Briah was supposed to be here and he wasn't, and the redhead was left in his place. The redheaded leech, who could've killed Remy before she even realized something was wrong. Embry slammed his healed fist into the wall again, breaking his bones once more.

When the tips of her fingers brushed against his shoulder, he jumped, electrified by it. But she dragged her hand down his arm, taking her time before she reached his hand and intertwined his halfway healed fingers with hers. "Embry," she said his name in a hushed voice, and all that anger, that hot and sticky anger that almost drowned him, drained his body at once. Embry turned and faced her, clinging to her hand like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away.

It was both amazing and frustrating, how calm she looked. She never looked this gentle and Embry couldn't help but wonder if the gentleness was because she knew that's what he needed. "I'm sorry," he said in a hoarse voice, suddenly all too aware of his violent outburst. And now instead of rage, all he felt was shame at the idea that Remy had seen him lose control like that.

She didn't seem to care, though. Just sighed, and brought his hand up, examining it and turning it between her own. She watched as the swelling dwindled and his knuckle shifted back into place. "It's okay," she told him simply, tracing her thumb over his knuckles.

His mouth felt dry. Her words were steady but her hands were not. Her heart was beating faster than it normally was and the smile she forced on didn't meet her eyes. Remy was scared, and he didn't know how much of it was his fault. "Are you okay?" he asked, lifting his free hand to cup her cheek. Her skin was soft and warm and the feeling of it steadied his heartbeat.

Remy gave him a shrug, eyes darting from Embry to the ground to the sky. "I don't know," she said, slightly nuzzling into his touch. "Would finding out who that is and why she was here instead of my brother make me feel better?"

"Probably not," Embry told her honestly, and the possibilities and theories rattled around in his head. But nothing really made sense to him. Because even if Briah was doing dirty work for that red headed tick, Embry couldn't believe he would purposefully do anything to put Remy in danger like that. It was the one thing they had in common.

She shifted her weight around, biting down on her lip. And in that moment, he would've given anything to know what she was thinking, to know how she was processing everything that had happened in the past twenty minutes and to know every emotion she was feeling. "Can you tell me anyways?" she asked, impatience in her tone. Remy was always impatient when it came to her brother. She was impatient to figure out what happened to him, impatient to find him, and impatient to see him. And now she was impatient to know what the hell was going on. Embry couldn't blame her.

Embry didn't know how to phrase his answer or how to make her understand but he settled with, "Her name's Victoria."

"Victoria, like, like the chick that wants to kill Bella? Like that Victoria?" Remy asked, tone unreadable, and Embry nodded in response. He watched as Remy chewed on her cheek and listened to her heart pounding in her chest before she said, "Okay. Let's go home."

* * *

Jacob cracked the bones in his neck and leaned back in his chair, looking Embry in the eye. "So he's a threat."

"He's not a threat," Embry shot back, shoulders tense. He came into Sam's house knowing that he was gonna have to spend a lot of energy defending Briah. And that would be difficult, considering how the thought of him still filled him with violent fantasies.

"Well, he's a threat to Bella," Jacob argued back. He knew he wasn't gonna like this conversation and he knew that the only thing Jacob would be thinking about was how this was a danger to Bella. And damn, they knew she wasn't his imprint, but he sure as hell acted like she was.

Embry had to bite back the urge to tell Jake that no one really gave a shit about Bella right now. "He's a member of the tribe," he said simply, like it was black and white, "we protect him."

"No," Paul chimed in, correcting Embry swiftly, "he was a member of the tribe. Then he died, and then he became this. Now he's hanging around the enemy and putting your imprint in danger. And that's a threat to all of us."

Embry stared hard at Paul for a moment. He thought, before sitting everyone down at this stupid table, that he would at least have Paul on his side. "So what do you want me to do?" he questioned, a harsh edge to his voice. "Kill Remy's brother? You want me to kill my imprint's brother after she just got him back?" He proposed this idea as if it was insane, unthinkable, not like something he desperately wanted to do just the day before. Because, after some thought, he decided that killing Briah was the only thing that would make Remy feel worse.

"No one's asking you to do that," Sam interjected, staring at Embry with his arms crossed.

"Yeah, because I wanna do it."

Jared was quiet when he found out about Briah. Didn't say anything to anyone and kept his best to keep the name out of his head. But the one thing he couldn't keep from replaying in his thoughts was the blood that obscured his eyesight while strong fists hit him over and over. He wasn't over what happened and he wasn't about to be. Embry couldn't fault him for that, but he could for the brute way Jared talked about it. "Shut up Jared."

The older boy snorted, rolling his eyes like this was an easy topic and an easy call. "I'm just saying, if someone has to kill that dickhole, I call dibs. I call dibs and if anyone else even thinks about doing it themselves, I'll kill you too."

The sound of Remy's voice begging Embry not to kill her brother rung around in his head and practically snarled, "I told you to shut the fuck up."

"Can we think of another option besides killing him?" Quil said suddenly, voice unsteady. "The kid was my cousin too."

"You're not even really related," Jared snapped back, crossing another line that should've been left alone.

Quil looked at his pack mate incredulously. "No one fucking likes you right now."

"We're not killing anyone until we figure out what happened and why she was there," Sam spoke, his voice authoritative, ringing with finality.

Embry narrowed his eyes at the alpha, nerves on edge. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam looked at him with sure eyes. "It means that we find out why Briah has anything to do with Victoria and then we act accordingly."

There was a beat of silence, and Embry let the words sink in, thinking of what exactly they could mean. "I can't believe you let Remy hang around that fucking leech anyways," Jared spoke up again, like he was irritated that the conversation drifted away from his hatred for Briah.

"He's her brother," Embry retorted. "And she spent a year thinking he was dead."

"Hey, newsflash dumbass," Jared teased, laughing humorlessly, "he is dead. And if he was Kim's brother, I wouldn't let her near him if he was human."

"Yeah, because telling Kim who she can and can't be around has really worked out well for you in the past," Embry snapped back, leaning forward in his seat. He didn't know if Jared meant what he was saying, but he was tired of hearing it. "Y'know, you're pretty confident about being able to beat Briah in a fight, considering last time that happened he put you in the hospital."

Something darkened in Jared's eyes. "Watch it."

"Why, what are you gonna do? Huh? Gonna lose a fight to Briah and then bully my girlfriend to make yourself feel better about it?"

"That's enough!" Sam commanding, voice booming. Embry flicked his eyes towards the oldest of them. "Whatever's going on between you two," he continued, "knock it off. I'm sick of it."

Embry crossed his arms and settled back in his seat, glare hard on Jared.

* * *

Remy was strong. Embry had to keep reminding himself of that fact. It was easy for him to forget how well she could hold her own and how formidable she was outside of his weird supernatural world. When she looked up at him with wide, innocent eyes, he sometimes forgot about all the bones she had broken and the people she left unconscious. He had to remind himself not to treat her like she was fragile, like she was about to break. And whenever he did, Remy scrunched up her face. "If you're so tough," she told him with an edge to her voice, "you won't mind helping me train."

Embry held up two punching mitts in front of his face as Remy's shin collided with his thigh. "What's this called again?" he asked, steady and unbruised.

"Muay thai," she replied quickly and breathlessly, throwing a quick jab at Embry. Her punches were stronger than her kicks, he noticed, and he wasn't sure if that was because she was holding back for fear of hurting him or if it was because boxing really was her specialty. Her movements were quick; right jab, left jab, low kick. Sweat glistened on her forehead. They had been going for a while, switching up patterns and taking a few breaks.

There was something different about Remy. It was like she had withdrawn into herself, spending a lot more time alone and a lot less time with him. And when they were together, she didn't talk much. She was either leaning into his side with her attention fixated on some arthouse movie or throwing rapid-fire punches at him. It drove him insane. "Will you tell me what you're thinking about?" he asked as her fist collided with the pad.

"I'm trying to figure out how many times I have to kick you before it has any impact on you at all," Remy said in between heavy puffs of breath.

Embry smiled down at her. "I don't think that's gonna happen. Besides, the more tired you get, the weaker your kicks get."

With a heavy inhale and a speed Embry wasn't expecting, Remy brought her right left back and propelled it into the side of Embry's thigh. It hit him with a thud, and he left out a groan, half real and half for her benefit. "Okay, that one kind of hurt."

Remy bit the strap of her boxing glove and pulled it back. "I'm done then," she said, sticking the glove between her thighs and yanking her hand out. "Will you grab me my water?"

He obliged, tossing her the plastic bottle from her bag. She caught it with her free hand. "You gonna tell me what's really on your mind now?"

"No thoughts, head empty."

Embry frowned at her. "Be serious."

"I am."

"Remy."

"Embry."

"You know I can't help you if you don't tell me."

Remy wasn't looking at him while she spoke. "That's fine, I don't need help."

"Remy."

" _Embry_."

There was a beat of silence before Embry spoke. "You're not acting like yourself. It's worrying me," he admitted, and he wondered if she knew that, or even if she could begin to understand it.

"I just," Remy started, and then sighed. She chewed on the top of her water bottle for a minute before she said, "You know this like, a lot right?" For a second, he thought about her words. He thought about what she meant and before he could respond to that sentiment Remy was speaking again. "It's a lot to go from thinking my brother is dead to seeing him alive in front of me. Like that's fucking a lot. And that's not even considering," she paused and looked down at her feet. "I'm tired of not knowing what's gonna happen with him."

Embry didn't know what to say and he didn't know what to do. And he was staring down the love of his life, sweaty and tired, thinking that maybe there wasn't anything he could do to make her feel better. He felt helpless. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked, almost pleading with her.

Remy looked at Embry for a long time before she said, "No."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there was a solid three month gap between when i wrote chapter thirty and then chapter thirty-one and i think you can really tell by the length and by the tone. either way, thanks for reading and enjoying rlly happy to share this story with y’all


	32. chapter thirty-two: the call

I sat, curled up in the corner of Bobby's room with my phone pressed so hard against my cheek that the screen was sticking to my skin. And I felt like the world's biggest piece of shit. Because it was there, with shaking fingers and my teeth dug into my cheek, that I made a decision. I made the call that Bobby and Quil and Embry and even Bella Swan's life did not matter to me as much as my brother. I made the call that I would keep in him in my life even if I lost everyone else. He wasn't gonna die again. "Remy," he said over the phone, voice impossible smooth, "you have to believe me."

"Bear," I whispered back frantically, hushed like I wasn't in this massive home alone, "they're gonna fucking kill you if you have anything to do with that stupid revenge plot."

I could hear shuffling of branches and leaves like he was running through a bush. "I don't. I don't give a shit about some random girl from Forks and I don't care about whatever it is that's going on." I didn't respond. I bit on the edge of my thumb and stared at Bobby's carpet, trying to calm my breathing and trying not to think of what I would have to do to protect my brother from snarling teeth. "Listen, Remy, she was the one to turn me. Alright? After I woke up and I was changed, she was there to guide me through it."

"Then why did you lie to me? You told me you were alone that whole time and you had to figure everything else on your own and I believed you!" I said, voice sounding hysteric. "Why didn't you just tell me about her in the first place?"

"Because I knew your little wolves were tracking her and you would've told them-"

"Not if you told me not to!" I yelled back. "How many times have I covered for you and lied for you? You think I wouldn't do that to keep you safe?"

There were noises on the other side that I couldn't discern and my heart was pounding in my throat. "Remy, you gotta listen to me, alright? Breathe and listen, okay? I was gone for a year. And for most of it I didn't remember who you were. I didn't know what had changed or if you had changed at all. I was just trying to save my ass, and I'm sorry if that makes me sound like an untrusting ass, but that's all I knew."

I swallowed a lump in my throat. "What else happened that you didn't tell me?"

He sighed. "There's not much, okay? I know Vic. She helped me figure myself out and she wanted me to be like, her second in command for her stupid little army. But she couldn't manipulate me like the blonde kid she's got now. She couldn't drag me into her shit, alright? I don't care about Bella Swan and her stupid boyfriend. I care about you. Alright? You're my family."

"But why was she there?" I choked out, on the verge of sobs and a headache splitting me up. "You knew I was coming and you knew Embry was gonna be there with me. Like, what did you think was gonna happen?"

A beat of silence. Nothing but the line buzzing. "I had to hunt," he admitted after a second. "I hadn't in a while and I was thirsty and I needed to do it before I saw you, so you wouldn't be in danger." My stomach churned at the idea of someone dying just so my brother could stand to be near me and I thought I might throw up whatever was left in my gut. "I don't think she knew I was seeing you. I think she just followed my scent and ended up there to see what was going on. We still talk. She's the only other one like me I know. But Rem, you gotta believe me when I tell you-"

"How?" I shouted into the phone, rounding raw and feeling unhinged. I didn't know if I was crying out of rage or out of anxiety. "How am I supposed to believe you after you lied? You lied to me and I'm your sister!"

I could hear him breathing. He didn't need to breathe but he did it anyway, loud enough for me to hear and I figure it was some kind of emotion he was trying to convey. "Remy, you know I'd never do anything to hurt you. You're the only person on this planet I trust. I was there when Mom and Dad were screaming so loud you couldn't sleep. I was there when you needed to teach someone how to stand up for yourself. I was there for you when you got too drunk and you needed someone to protect you from stupid assholes. I'll always be there for you, Remy. Nothing's gonna change that. You'll always be my sister."

Hearing those words, in that soft and soothing voice, slowed my erratic breathing and stopped the falling of tears. And I was hit with this clarity. The clarity that to me, he's always been Bear, the caring older brother that put me before the world, and to everyone else, he was Briah, harsh and cruel and brutal. And there was nothing I could do to make the world see him in the way I saw him. But that didn't mean I was gonna let him go. I let out a shaky exhale. "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I'm asking you for instruction," I explained. "Do you want me to tell them that we talked and that you said you have nothing to do with whatever stupid shit is going on with Bella Swan?"

"No," Bear replied immediately. "They wouldn't believe me. They'd try to tell you that you only believe me cause I'm your brother and they'd just find a way to blame me for something that has nothing to do with me. Because one way or another, they're gonna want me dead. They always want people like me dead."

I was shaking my head. "That's not true. It's not. The Cullen's, they always come back here and-"

"They don't know if they can beat the Cullen's, Remy. There's a lot of vamps in that clan, and there's something special about almost all of them. But me? They could take me down easy."

"They wouldn't."

"They would. Remy, think, please," he begged. "Please just think for a second. We're enemies. We don't go together. And I just think, that for the timing being, until all of this kinda blows over, I should just go."

"No!" I yelled again, heart picking up again and panic gripping my chest. "Bear, I'm sick of this. You can't keep leaving. You can't. I just got you back, Bear."

"They're gonna kill me," he insisted.

I shook my head so hard I thought my head was gonna fall off. "Bear, they're not. I won't let that happen. Just," I sighed, running my fingers through my hair and tugging on my roots. "Don't leave, Bear," I asked, voice hushed. "Stay on the downlow for a bit. Call me and text me and keep me updated on what's going on and I'll try to figure out a way to make this work. Just, please don't leave."

I counted to eleven before he responded. "Okay, Remy. I won't leave." And I knew that it didn't matter if he was lying. I was gonna stay by his side anyways.

My headache wouldn't leave. Part of me was tempted to crawl to the basement and die with some old Parental Control reruns playing on the television, but the idea that Bobby's parents could stumble down there and find me all comatose stopped me. I just crawled up to Bobby's bed and lied face down on her pillows. The house was different with Bobby's parents around. Her mom was too dotting, like she was trying to make up for the fact that her dad was kind of a douche. It was like it was haunted by the ghost of cliché parental roles. They were leaving again soon, and I was excited to watch this home turn back into a home and saddened at the idea that Bobby was better off without her parents around.

I thought I had probably cried myself dry. I felt so empty, thinking of nothing, because it was easier that way. I felt sick at the idea I would have to lie to Embry and I wondered why that was my number one concern at the moment. I didn't know how to lie to him. I tried not to picture the way his face would fall when he realized I was hiding this from him. It knotted me up, but I knew I had to. It's not something he could hide and I knew if he got the order to sink his teeth into my brother's skin, he wouldn't have the option to say no.

I missed Embry. I missed being in his arms and I missed the way would kiss the side of my face and I had just seen him the day before but it felt like too long. I didn't wanna be without him. I didn't wanna be sharp anymore. I liked the way I felt when I was around him and I liked who I was and I thought if I risked that for my brother I might never be this fulfilled again, but I'd do it. I held onto hope that he would understand.

"Jesus, who died?" I heard Bobby say, followed by the sound of her bag hitting the ground. I didn't look up. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

A loud and long groan fell from my lips. "Can we do something fun this weekend?" I asked, words muffled by the silk pillowcases. I turned, looking at her with watery eyes. Bobby stood in her doorway, arms crossed and narrowed. "You look like you need to go just as wild as me right now."

Bobby crossed the room and sat on the edge of her own bed, her hand reaching up to stroke my hair. "Aw, Remy," she said in a soothing voice, "I mean this in the nicest way possible, I will never need to go as wild as you do."

"You don't mean that in the nicest way possible."

She hummed, fingers still tangled in my hair. "I could use a classic Remy chaos night though. I feel like it's been a while since we ruined someone's night." Bobby sighed wistfully. "What happened to us?"

"We got domesticated," I told her, thinking of how calm Embry made me and how Bobby was too preoccupied with the eldest Clearwater to pour shots down my throat anymore.

"No, you got domesticated. I can't be tamed."

"That just means Leah still hasn't asked you to be her girlfriend," I told her in a lazy voice, and Bobby went from stroking strands of my hair to hitting me in the back of the head. "Ow! What the fuck was that for?"

Bobby returned to her comforting motions and said, "For being right but being a dick about it," she huffed. "Whatever, though, you're right. Things have just been feeling, I dunno, heavy lately. Let's just get messy."

* * *

Bella Swan tapped nervously on the wheel of her truck, looking back and forth between me and the road. I wondered if there was ever a moment when this girl wasn't nervous, hands shaking and biting her lip. She was frazzled and frizzled, like static electricity. I wondered how a girl like her, so fragile and so frail, found herself in the middle of this mess. "Um," Bella started, eyes trailing on the bruises on my knuckles and the almost-healed bust in my lip, "are you sure about this?"

"Why?" I countered. "Should I not be?"

There was something unspoken behind my question that made Bella halt. "I guess not," she said after a moment, returning her eyes to the road ahead of us. And then she asked, "Did you tell Embry?"

A heavy sigh and the word, "No," fell from my lips.

It was my idea, brilliant and flawless, to go and talk to the Cullen's. Cause I thought, if I can't convey the testimony of my brother to Embry, I can at least try to help Bear another way. I didn't have a clear-cut plan, and I figured it was a long shot, but I had this vision of them taking in my brother. Protecting him and helping him figure out his life the way it was. It could be mutually beneficial too; they would guide my brother through their way of living and he would teach them how to act like people from the twenty-first century. And I wasn't stoked on the idea of my brother living with a former Confederate, but I was even less stoked at the idea of him draining someone of life.

And I didn't tell Embry. I didn't wanna be like Bella, the type of girl who asks her boyfriend for permission and then sneaks around his back when he says no and more than anything, I didn't wanna argue with him. Because if I told him that I wanted to do this for Bear and he said no, I didn't know what I would've done.

"You know, you're really lucky to have him," Bella said after a moment, yanking my attention away from the thoughts that were starting to make me feel sick. "Embry, I mean."

I didn't know why I was jealous of Bella Swan or why it came in the waves that it did, but I narrowed my eyes at her, slightly surprised at the fact "How would you know? You barely know him."

"But I know Jake. He talks about him sometimes. It just seems like, like you guys are really good for each other." I knew her words were meant to be some sort of comfort to me but they just felt like an intrusion. Being around her made me miss Bobby and her abrasions. "I just don't think you have to hide anything from him. I mean, he really cares about you."

I had to remind myself that Bella was doing me a favor, and she could, at any point, stop doing this favor for me. I bit down on my tongue. "Yeah, he does," I agreed, feeling uneasy.

In the light of day, the Cullen house seemed larger, more intimidating. As Bella pulled into the driveway, my eyes scanned over the large and open windows, my mouth dry and my heart beating in my throat. I wondered if the occupants of this home could hear it and it suddenly occurred to me that I was out of my league. That I had no idea what I was doing and how to deal with their type and that the only other time I had been here I was guzzling down cups of beer like it was water and now I was dreadfully sober. And even though the home was modern and sleek it left me feeling like there was something awful on the inside. I didn't know how Bella could stand it.

I followed her inside, noting how different and how eerie the home was empty. It was too large to be this barren. Wordlessly, Bella led my upstairs and through a string of rooms until we ended up in a living room, a television larger than I thought possible playing the gruesome news of the endless Seattle murders. And they were all standing there, still as statues with beady eyes and dreadfully pale skin. I recognized Emmett, large and foreboding and with this shit-eating grin on his face that reminded me of Paul. The rest of them, though, put me on edge. My hands were calmly and I kept clenching and unclenching my fists as Bella left my side and trotted over to the one with pretentiously disheveled red hair.

It couldn't have been a full second before Bella spoke. "This is Remy, the nomad's sister. And um, Remy, this is everyone. Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward," she finished, leaning into her boyfriend and tapping on his chest as she said his name.

"I know Remy," Emmett spoke, voice just as deep and booming as the night I met him, "she's the keg stand queen!"

I tried to run over everyone's names. Carlisle and Emse, the Lifetime movie parents that are just a little too attractive and a little too young for realism. Alice, short and weird. Jasper, tall and weird. Roslie, a white and blonde version of Bobby. Beefy Emmett and string bean Edward. I tried to guess which one was the Confederate officer. Maybe Carlisle. I hoped not Emmett.

"That was a long time ago," the smooth and low voice of Edward came, and I was shocked at the sudden realization that he was talking to me.

I stared at him for a long time. "What?" I asked, looking directly at him with a slightly agape mouth before I remembered what Embry told me a long time ago. He knew what I was thinking, and I was filled with indignation at the idea of him searching and filing through my thoughts, like they existed for his listening. I clenched my fists, and imagined Embry, large and wolfy, ripping his head off. Edward chuckled.

Carlisle, with his blonde hair and pasty skin, stepped forward. "Welcome to our home, Remy," he said, extending his hand towards me. With great hesitation, I took it. His cold, stone hand. I ground my teeth together at the feeling. "It's a pleasure to have you here."

The way he talked was so clear and precise, polished, like he spend hours rehearsing it before my arrival. I thought that if I met these people before I knew the truth I wouldn't have believed they were real. "Right, um, thanks," I replied, pulling my hand from his and rubbing the sweat off on my jeans. Carlisle stepped back. He was the only one who moved since I stepped in the door.

I didn't say anything for a minute, feeling frozen and uncomfortable. The mother of the group seemed to notice this, and promoted me with an easy, "To what do we owe the pleasure?" like they didn't already know.

"Right, um," I started, bouncing on the balls of my feet and avoiding all of the eyes that were on me. "So, I'm sure you know about my brother, and everything, and I was just wondering if there was any way you could maybe like, help him." I finished, hating how unsure and weak my voice sounded. No one spoke and still no one moved. They unnerved me and part of me wanted to run from them and the other half wanted to scream until they at least tried not to act creepy. "I mean he's like, I think he's just doing what he has to to survive. I don't think he knows that there's another way."

There's a cloak of tenseness over the room. No one talks to me but Carlisle. "We've tried to make contact with him before, when we've caught his scent in the area," he explains carefully. "He runs from us each time."

"He probably thinks you're a threat," I rush to explain, my fingers trembling. "He's always been like, well even when he was human, he was like that."

They look back and forth between each other so quickly I almost miss it. It's like they're silently deciding who gets to say no to me. "Remy," Edward spoke, my name sounding wrong in his voice, "your brother might have chosen to help one of our enemies. Someone who wants to hurt Bella, and this entire family." He chose his words delicately, and he didn't explain any further than that.

I felt hysteric in that room. Surrounded by stone people who didn't let an ounce of expression cross their features. And there I was, heart pounding in my throat and my entire body shaking. I was twisted up and gnarled and they looked down on me like silent observers. "He doesn't know any better," I defended. "She's the only of your kind that he's ever known and he doesn't know how to exist in your world. He just needs help, and you're the only people who can help him."

I was acutely aware of how embarrassing it was to have this conversation in front of Bella Swan and I tried not to let that thought linger in my head for too long. "Remy," Carlisle started, voice heavy with implications.

"Look," I cut him off, "my brother didn't choose to be like this. He didn't want this. It was forced upon him and now he can't go back and he just needs someone to take care of him and to help him," I tell them, looking hard on a spot on the ground. "He doesn't have to be a bad person."

I counted to ten before, ears ringing, before I heard a new voice. Soft and sweet like bells. "We'll help your brother." I look up at Rosalie, surprised at how sure and confident her words sounded. Like there was no room for dispute. Like there was no argument. My heart swelled.

For the first time since I stepped in their home, I felt calm. I looked her in the eyes and said, "Thank you." And with the silence of her family, it was decided.

* * *

I didn't really sleep anymore. I couldn't. There was this exhaustion that was settled so deep into my bones they felt soft, eroded and weakened but still, every time I closed my eyes I was filled with this shuddering feeling that something was sneaking up from behind and they shot right open.

Embry couldn't sleep either. That's what he told me whenever he took my hand in his and led me from the path to Bobby's place to the shoreline. We sat there on the sand, my head on his shoulder and his arm around mine. Embry took his thumb and rubbed it along the bottom of my cheek, soothing and soft. I felt warm, at peace in his arms. I could tell he was tired, preoccupied and mind somewhere else while he stared off at the crashing waves. I couldn't blame him, especially considering half of my attention was focused on the way my phone felt in my pocket, waiting for it to vibrate.

My fingers drew patterns on his knee and listened to his breathing. I called Bear three times. Texted him about twenty. And there was nothing from him. It was like he disappeared again, leaving me alone and I wondered how many more excuses he could come up with for doing that.

"Why'd you go to the Cullen's today?"

Embry's sudden words made me lean away from his touch. I stared at him with furrowed features. "How'd you know?"

"Um, werewolf, enhanced senses, that whole thing," he explained, tone light and teasing. "Y'know the scent of my natural enemies all over my girlfriend isn't really something that's easy to ignore. Not to mention, Jacob can't really keep his mouth shut, wolf telepathy or not." I didn't answer. I just dropped my head down and became intensely focused on my fingers. "Remy, you know I'm not like, trying to control you or what you do or anything."

"I know."

"If you wanna do something, I'm not gonna stop you."

"I know."

"Then why are you hiding things from me like I am?"

I sighed, leaning back and looking towards the water, thinking of the way the moon moves the tides. Thinking of the way the moon and the ocean will always be connected. I trusted Embry. I trusted his words and the sincerity he spoke them with and the look in his eyes. I trusted him, wholly and unconditionally. And I didn't know how many times he had to prove himself to me before I started acting like it.

Our relationship was fresh, awkward and unsure. I didn't know the rules or the standards and he didn't either. My teeth gnawed on the soft flesh of my cheek and I watched small rocks get dragged out to sea. "I don't know," I told him honestly, not thinking of my words before I spoke them out loud. "What would you do if Sam told you to kill my brother?" I asked, surprising myself.

With an easy shrug and an uncharacteristic bluntness, Embry replied, "I'd tell him to go fuck himself." I stared up at him, eyes narrowed and I didn't know if that was even possible. "No, I'm serious," he assured me. "Alpha or not, he doesn't have the authority to make me do something that would hurt you so much."

"Do you think he would try?"

This made him stall. He looked away from me and back towards the sea. "I don't know."

There was a beat. "I went to the Cullen's to see if they would take Bear in," I told him. "I got them to agree, and I guess I didn't tell you because I thought you wouldn't think it was a good idea or maybe you thought it was too dangerous for me to go there and then I would've had to argue with you and I thought it might've just been easier to not tell you until I knew for sure it was gonna happen."

Embry moved away from me, shifting around to face me and before I could say anything he took my face in my hands and said, "Remy, I don't own you. I know that. I may want to protect you and I may insist I go with you because I need to make sure you're safe, but I don't own you, and you don't have to choose between making me happy and trying to help your brother." His eyes were dark and they held onto mine and made my heart beat faster. "I'm on your side. We're partners."

I leaned forward, pressing my forehead against his. "I don't wanna make you choose between me and your pack if it comes down to it."

But his hands moved to the back of my neck and he lifted my head to meet his eyes once more. My face was so close to his I lost my breath. "It's not gonna come down to that. It's not, alright? No one has to make any decisions like that, Remy."

"I'm sorry," I choked out, my face feeling hot.

Embry leaned forward, leaving a kiss on the crown on my head and pulled me into his lap, my head resting on his chest. "It's okay," he said, and then nothing else as he held me tight against his chest until the sun rose over the water.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today i am depressed so i offer you this wee chapter in hopes of making other ppl feel less sad


	33. chapter thirty-three: the bleach

I chewed on my lip, sitting on the floor of Sam and Emily's apartment, trying to ignore the sunflower seeds that bounced off my face and fell onto the carpet and the dickhead who kept throwing them in my direction. They had been gone for a while. Or they hadn't. I wasn't letting myself look at my phone but it had felt like it had been at least two hours. And I wasn't sure how long this type of thing should take, but I figured it shouldn't be more than a half hour, and the anxiety that something extremely wrong happened had wormed its way in.

"Hey, Remy," Paul whispered from across the room, holding another seed delicately in between his two fingers. He flicked it in my direction. "Remy, pssst. Remy. Hey, Remy."

"Leave her alone, Paul," Seth chided at his older counterpart from his spot in the chair behind me, like I wasn't right there. "Remy's experiencing an experimental crisis."

"An existential crisis, Seth."

"Pretty sure Embry said experimental."

I could see Paul shift in his seat from the corner of my eye. "She hasn't said anything or moved in like twenty minutes," he said carefully, and then moved in closer to me. And before I could react, there was a handful of tiny little seeds being flung in my direction. I flinched as they hit me in the eyes and mouth and tangled up in my hair. And then, for just a moment, I turned and stared at Paul.

Then I lunged.

Seth grabbed me by the arm and yanked me back down to my spot on the carpet before I could do any real damage. "HA! She lives!" Paul cheered, leaning back in his chair and shoving a handful of those stupid fucking seeds in his mouth.

"Paul, you are the worst person I have ever met. You are the only mistake god has ever made. If I died right now, I would be ecstatic, because it would mean I would never have to speak to you again," I told him, shaking out my hair, seeds falling out and hiding in the carpet. I doubted Paul was about to get on his knees and pick each one up.

"Stop talking like a CW villain and lighten up," he said, like I was the annoying one in this situation. "You've just been sitting there staring at the ground this whole time. It's creepy. Like babysitting a little possessed doll."

"They should be back by now," I stated, twirling my fingers together and biting down on my lip. I wished that Embry put someone else in charge of making sure I didn't do anything self-destructive, because every time Paul opened his mouth it set my nerves on fire and Seth was too nice to let me jump across the room and throttle him.

Instead, Seth just put a comforting, large hand on my shoulder and I wondered how this kid was so much younger than me. "Relax, Rem, I'm pretty sure if something went wrong we would've heard by now," he told me like that settled it, and his couple of words would just make everything alright. I didn't think I could stand to be around him much longer. The kid was way too optimistic for me.

"Unless they died," Paul said casually from his spot on the couch, chewing and grinning.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Shut up Paul."

"They're not dead," Seth assured me quickly.

"But if they were, we wouldn't know it."

"Maybe my parents are dead," I said, and earned silence from the other two. I was happy when it met my ears but I was annoyed I had to pull the 'potentially dead parents' card on them for it to happen.

It was the night before when I got the call from Quil, when I was huddled next to Bobby on her couch, watching a bloodied up Rose McGowan get murked in a garage. Said his mom was worried, hadn't heard from either of my parents in a while. And I didn't think much of it, because I didn't know what was going on with my mom and I never did. I hadn't noticed the declining frequency in which she was calling me daily or even the fact that my father made no attempt to contact me, not until Quil told me they caught Bear's scent in the area and the house empty.

And then it became a search party.

The whole event had left me feeling empty, and it was a grim realization that I didn't feel scared or panicked about the idea of my parents missing, not in the way I felt about Embry putting himself in danger to try and find them. I didn't know if that made me a bad person or not. I decided I'd settle on an emotion when I figured out what happened to them.

No one really said anything about it to me. They didn't have to; I knew what they were thinking. I was thinking it too. And one thing I was sure of, if my brother, primal and changed, had killed our parents, I felt almost sick to admit that I understood. Bear was always more, vengeful than me.

There wasn't much about my life that would change without either of them in it. That was, at least, what I kept repeating to myself. But there was something that lurched inside me at the thought of it. I felt bad for my dad. Less for my mom. She was just so wrong in everything she did. So wrong but she did it with such conviction. I thought about what it must be like to look your seventeen-year old child and tell them, with a visceral malice in your voice, that they were a whore. To hate your oldest so much that he found himself swallowing a bottle of pills in the woods behind your house. Still, the thought of her dead left me feeling unwell.

Paul, in a rare moment in which he was moved by empathy, said to me, "I really don't think that's the case here, kid, but no matter what, we'll take care of you."

For whatever reason, his kindness left me feeling gross. I scooped up a pile of disregarded seeds and flung them back at him. "You freak me out when you're nice. That's Seth's job. Keep being a jerk at inappropriate times, please."

He scoffed. "You're such a dick."

"I think you're really nice, Remy."

"I think you're a monster made of worms."

"Paul's actually just jealous because you're cooler than him and got a better grade in your ethics class than he did."

With a heavy sigh, I collapsed against the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. "This is nice," I told them. "It's leveling me out."

It was about another twenty minutes of nonsensical insults and vague threatening before the door was flung open and the sound of footsteps made me shoot up so fast my head started spinning. Sam stepped into the living room, expression serious and flat, like it generally once. I gave him a hard state. I wasn't sure if I trusted Sam Uley handling anything that had to do with my family and I wasn't sure why but there was something just so severe about him that made him seem older and more worn down than he was. "Remy," he greeted, tone unclear.

"So?"

There was a large hand on Sam's shoulder as Embry nudged him out of the way. He looked down at me with soft and worried eyes. "Let's go outside, Rem."

Sunlight made me squint, putting a hand over my brow so I could see Embry shuffling around, hands deep in his pockets and breathing deeply. There was something bothering him, I could tell from the way he carried his shoulders. I bit down on my cheek while I studied him, pacing and mumbling incoherent nothings under his breath. My heart was beating faster than it was just the moment before as I contemplated what news he was about to give me. What information he found that made me tremble with rage. And then, he stopped, facing me directly and looking like he was trying his best not to explode. "Remy," Embry started, and then sighed heavily, "Briah told your parents."

"What?"

Embry kicked the dirt under his feet. "Me and Sam were tracking his scent south and we left Quil by the house just in case anything happened, and," he paused, looking away from me and deep into the tree line, "your parents were home, so Quil went to talk to him and then they just, they knew everything."

Erratic heartbeats slammed against my chest and my throat went dry. "What did they say?"

Clenched fists and grinding teeth and trembling shoulders were my answer. Embry stepped away from me, back turned. I went to reach for him, like it was an instinct, but it was like he could feel my fingers before they reached his skin and he said, "Please don't touch me right now."

My heart sunk into my gut at his words. With a couple of pointed stomps, I put myself in front of Embry again, desperately trying to meet his eye while he stared pointedly at the ground. "What did my parents say, Embry?" I asked again, some of that hysteria that flooded my chest leaking its way into my voice. He said nothing and I didn't touch him but I stepped closer to his shaking form and I knew I wasn't thinking straight but I said, "Embry, tell me what the fuck my parents said."

I wasn't thinking about the fact that his anger could hurt me. I was thinking that whatever my mother said had filled him with such a rage that he couldn't even speak, and that made me take a step forward. Embry's shaking was violent now, his shoulders rising and falling as he tried to control his breaths. And before I could open my mouth to speak once more, my ground was gone from under my feet and the wind was expelled from my lungs.

My head and back were slammed against the jagged bark of a tree and I groaned at the contact, feeling suddenly dizzy. Seth stood above me, covering my frame with his own. "Sorry," he rushed out, hearing my groans, and stepped away, letting my slump against the tree on my own. "Are you okay?" he asked, examining me from scraps and bruises.

I nodded, looking to the spot where Embry once stood, the grey wolf I had become familiar with taking his place. I looked at him with unsure eyes. "I'm sorry," I mumbled, shame bubbling in my gut.

I itched the back of my neck. "Is it supposed to burn?"

I could barely hear Bobby's response over the running water of the bathtub, while she frantically scrubbed the porcelain free of purple stains. "It's not supposed to be touching your skin," she called back to me.

Long, saturated strands of my hair rested easily on my collarbones. "Then why did you put it on my skin?" I asked, and received no answer. Rolling my eyes, I stood from the edge of the tub and stood in front of the mirror. There was something so remarkably different about me, and it wasn't just the purple toner that covered the bottom half of my hair. There was a fullness in me, in my reflection. I wasn't used to it. For so many years, I looked into the mirror and felt lacking. Like there was something missing, something that left my cheeks hollow and the bruises under my eyes heavy. I didn't know what was missing, but my reflection had told me that I found it. "This isn't gonna make my hair purple, right?" I asked, sitting back down next to Bobby as she scrubbed.

"No," she answered, coming up for air. "It's just gonna take all of the brassy tones out of the bleached sections of your hair so you don't look like a bottle of apple juice," she told me, studying her handiwork. "It's gonna look so fucking good."

The hair bleaching process, spontaneous and semi-unwilling, had taken far too long and involved far too many arguments. It burned my skin and made my neck ache and I loved Bobby with all of my heart but at that point, if it didn't look good, I would've kicked her ass. "Whatever. I just hope all my hair doesn't fall out." Bobby rolled her eyes at me, but said nothing.

Bobby had been too tense for too long. And even though her parents had packed up and disappeared this morning, it still lingered. She kept trying to throw her energy into different things; bleaching my hair, cleaning out her wardrobe, inviting everyone we had ever met to a giant, celebratory house party. But I could tell it wasn't working. Because even though her parents were gone, there was still a threat that lingered. The potential that this wouldn't be her home anymore. "Did your dad say anything about the house?" I asked, trying to sound nonchalant, missing a time when aloofness came naturally to me.

"Yeah," Bobby said, voice airy. "They're tentatively gonna let me finish school here. It's too late for me to get into any of those private schools in Seattle they wanted me to go to. So I'm just here until they find a more pretentious place to go."

"You're an adult, Bobby," I reminded her. "You don't have to do what your parents say anymore."

Her eyes told me that she was far away from here. "We'll figure something out," she said, like it was final. "Leah's coming tonight," Bobby added, her voice suddenly filled with something wistful.

I didn't wanna tell Bobby that at least part of the reason Leah was going was to make sure that rest of the wolf boys, who would be in attendance, didn't act out. And even though that was true, I was almost positive Bobby had some sort of influence in the older girl's appearance. "How's it going between you two?" I asked.

"Slow," she responded with a sigh. "It took me like, so long to get her to give me a chance. But she's kind of just acting like, I dunno, we're just friends. And like, I call her pretty all the time and make my gay little comments, and it's like," Bobby's eyes suddenly widened and she looked at me in horror. "Oh my god, do you think she's straight? Holy shit, Remy, please tell me I did not invest all of my time and energy into a straight woman."

Laughter bubbled in my throat and I felt a smug smile grow on my face. "I dunno. Didn't you say I didn't know anything about the sapphic community?"

"Remy, now is not the time for you to be a smart ass. You tell me what you know right goddamn now."

I rolled my eyes. "From what I heard from her little brother, Leah's interested, she just really wants to like, take things slow. Y'know?" I told her, editorializing. Leah didn't want to take things slow. She wanted to tell Bobby everything and give her the opportunity to run, but she had an ex-boyfriend as a roadblock. "I think you should just give her time and try not to smother her. Your tenacity can be intimidating."

Bobby groaned, her body going limp as she rolled over onto the floor. I laughed at her, watching as she hit her fist against the tiled floor, like a toddler. "I don't wanna go slow! I wanna marry her already and have her adopted children!" Bobby practically yelled, face down.

"Where are you two gonna adopt your kids from?" I asked, kicking my feet up to where Bobby was just sitting.

She rolled over and spread her limbs out. "It doesn't even matter. We're gonna love them the same either way," Bobby whined. "One boy and one girl, Juniper and River. And I'll be a stay at home mom and Leah can do some sexy job. Like a construction worker, or a UPS delivery driver."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Bobby propped her weight up on her elbows and looked at me with unimpressed eyes. "So you're gonna look me dead in the eye and tell me you haven't planned out a future between you and Embry?"

"No, I haven't," I told her earnestly. "I have like, way better things to do than give myself anxiety thinking about things that may or may not happen."

"Oh come on! You don't do that thing before you go to sleep?" she asked, something dreamy and playful in her voice. Bobby was feminine; she was soft and she was pink. But she never talked like that before. Like she was so enamored and wrapped up in fairytales. Leah Clearwater really did a number on her. "Like when you create a plotline for you life and imagine yourself doing things you really wanna do?"

I thought about it for a minute. Tilting my head and tapping my fingers against my knee. The thought of me, living in a home that was not only my own, but also Embry's, made my stomach churn in a way that I couldn't decipher. And kids? Our kids? I'd have rather shot myself in the foot than give that anymore thought. "I guess I do that," I admitted. "It's just that, instead of thinking about the sexiest jobs Embry could do while I take care of our two kids with gender-neutral nature names, I imagine myself kicking the absolute shit out of Ronald Reagan."

Bobby blinked at me for a second, and then said, "You would absolutely body Reagan."

I didn't know how I ended up between Bobby and Kim, leaning against Bobby's kitchen counter, scooping up Jell-O shots out of their molds. And I didn't know how ten minutes had gone by without any backhanded compliments and passive threats. Instead, there was light conversation. Some may have even considered it friendly. I wasn't sure if it was because they were both already drunk or if we collectively got tired of arguing, but there was no animosity in the air. "Do you think Chief Swan is hot?" Kim suddenly asked, her fingers trying to push out a shot that crumbled in the mold. She picked up the pieces and threw them in her mouth, the fifth Jello-O shot that happened with.

I looked up at her with a furrowed brow. "What like, Bella's dad?"

"Yeah," she answered easily.

For a moment, I paused, thinking of the older man with a bushy mustache. "Yeah."

Bobby snorted at me. "When have you ever seen him before?"

"You're gonna act like my brother wasn't arrested at least four times?"

"And while that was happening you were thinking about what a dilf the dude arresting him is?" she challenged, looking at me with something that was a mix between a smile and a glare.

I pointed a finger at her. "I never said dilf."

"Yeah," Bobby agreed, tilting her head and pursing her lips, "but he is kind of a dilf, isn't he?"

Kim giggled, and then, as if she had made some horrible mistake, looked up between the two of us, like she was waiting for one of us to snap at her. But Bobby paid her no mind, just continued with her work, and taking the occasional shot. And I was surprised when it filled my chest with some sort of teary happiness. There was nothing in particular that had happened, but when Kim had showed up, apprehensive, with Jared tight at her side, I made some sort of decision that I was tired of the tiptoeing over glass shards. I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from her boyfriend and told her me and Bobby were glad she came. It was awkward at first, a forced niceness that felt uncomfortable. The shots of tequila really helped.

People were moving all around us, going from room to room with music booming in the background. I didn't know why I doubted Bobby when she told us that she invited everyone we knew, but it seemed that each room on the first floor of her home was filled with the youth population of both the res and Forks. I wasn't interested in talking to most of them, but I felt fulfillment at the chaotic atmosphere and bustling crowd. Still, I wasn't drunk enough. I took a heavy swig from the bottle of whiskey. Jell-O shots were gross.

Warm arms snaked around my waist and I smiled, leaning back into Embry's hold. "You drinking tonight?" I asked, holding up a Jell-O shot in his direction.

"No. Someone has to make sure you guys don't die," he replied, nuzzling his chin against the base of my neck. "It was supposed to be Leah's job but she's already three glasses of wine deep."

At his words, Bobby straightened up. "Leah's here?" I felt Embry nod against me. "And she's drinking? Holy shit." Frantically, Bobby gathered up as many Jell-O shots as she could carry and left us with a quick, "Tonight's my chance. Holy shit!"

I laughed as she disappeared into the crowd, dropping one or two little plastic containers on her way out. I looked over at Kim with warm eyes. "I'm glad you guys could get along," I told her, my voice dripping in sincerity. I liked the way I was feeling, while the alcohol was started to flood through my veins, and I wanted Kim to feel the way,

She flushed, like she always did, but she never used to do that around me. "I'm gonna go look for Jared and make sure he's not breaking anything. I'll see you later," Kim said, leaving just me and Embry.

After a beat, I turned to face Embry. He was looking down at me with a soft gaze and we said to each other, at the same time, "I'm sorry." I frowned.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," I told him, meaning it. I thought back to earlier in the afternoon, to his shaking shoulders and the clear signs that he was about to shift, and I kept pushing him anyways. It left me feeling shameful.

But Embry shook his head. "I need to learn how to control my anger better when it comes to you. I just," he sighed, "nothing really ever gets to me, except for when people don't treat you right. Especially your parents it just-"

"Hey," I cut him off, putting a hand on his cheek. "It's okay. I know my parents suck. I don't wanna think about it anymore, though, and I don't want you upset over it either. Let's just try to have fun tonight, alright?" I asked.

Embry nodded, lifting his hand to play with the new strands of blond. "It looks nice," he told me, swallowing. "So now that you're part blond, are you gonna have more fun?"

There were three clear events I could remember after that conversation.

First, I could remember losing an extremely competitive and violent game of beer bong. With Quil on my side, and Paul and Jared on the other. I threw the ball too hard, sometimes denting it and only landing it in the opposite cups about half the time. And the heckling from both Paul and Jared left me heated, throwing the ball even harder. At a certain point, I stopped caring about the game and just started aiming for the eyes. This enraged Quil. "Oh my fucking god Remy!" he had yelled, while I held the ball delicately in between my two fingers. "Just get it in the fucking cups, it is not that hard! Just fucking aim! Aim woman!"

When the ping pong ball hit Jared in the middle of his forehead, I thought him and Quil were both gonna pop a blood vessel.

And as satisfying as that was, it did cost both Quil and I the victory, and I found myself chugging down the rest of my drink with the new title of 'Worst Beer Pong Partner.' And I suddenly had to break the seal.

I stumbled my way upstairs, to the bathroom in Bobby's bedroom I was sure no one else would be occupying. My hand was fumbling with my belt buckle when I pushed open the door to Bobby's room. And I was already a little too far gone, so I almost didn't notice Bobby and Leah, sitting on the edge of her bed, with their lips locked. At my arrival, they jumped apart. "Um," I started, the glare from Leah making me nervous. "I'll go somewhere else."

Second, I remember sitting in the armchair with Embry's back against my shins after he cut me off (like I didn't dump out the water he gave me and pour vodka over the ice). Across from me, in a rather expensive loveseat, Kim was lightly crying and absolutely obliterated, with Jared's arms tight around her shoulders. "I just," she said through her tears, sniffling, "I just want you to get along. I feel like that's not too much to ask. I mean, you're both assholes so I don't get why you don't get along in the first place."

Jared and I shared a look that was both confused and concerned. "Kim," I said, trying to sound much more sober than I was, "me and Jared aren't really like, fighting anymore."

"Yeah," he agreed, "we're chill, honestly."

I tried to ignore the way Embry tensed against me. "But," Kim cried, "but why can't you just be friends? We can go on double dates! I've always wanted to go on double dates but now I can't because you guys are enemies."

"We're not enemies honey," Jared corrected, rubbing her tears away with his thumb.

"But you're not friends!" Kim wailed.

With a sigh, I raised my drink to my lips and took another heavy sip. The vodka burned down my throat and made me cough. Embry whipped around and glared at me, grabbing the cup from my hand and sniffing it. He frowned at me. "When the hell did you even have time to do that?" he questioned, and I gave him an innocent smile. "I'll be right back," he said, standing.

I pouted. He was annoyed. I could hear it in his voice and it put me on edge. I tugged on his hand before he could leave, and stared up at him with wide eyes. Embry sighed, the harshness in his eyes melting away. He leaned down and placed a small kiss on my lips. "Ugh," he complained, pulling away, "you taste like alcohol." And then he disappeared into the crowd once more.

Kim's eyes were watering. "You guys are so cute," she told me, even though there was hardly anything about that interaction I would've considered cute. It actually made my heart feel heavy.

I stood, swaying on my feet and made my way over to Kim. "Move please," I commanded Jared, and was surprised when he stood, making room for me on the couch next to his girlfriend. I collapsed, snuggling into Kim's side, and asked, "Do you think Embry likes me?"

There was a snort of laughter from Jared as he sat in the seat I used to occupy, but I ignored him. "Of course he likes you," Kim reassured me, with honesty in her voice that I didn't think I could get from Bobby. "You can tell from the way he looks at you. Embry really likes you."

My head dropped onto her shoulder. "Then why is he being mean?" I asked.

Jared watched the both of us, chuckling to himself but saying nothing at the interaction. I liked Kim. I liked her softness. "He's just worried and uptight because he's the only sober one," she explained. "And you guys are really different. And like, that's not a bad thing. But he's probably just worried about you being okay."

"Thank you," I said to her, thinking that the mixture of rum and vodka and whiskey had me feeling a little bit more emotional than normal. "I think Jared likes you too," I added for good measure."

Kim wrapped her arm around me and I was pulled back to when we would have sleepovers almost every weekend, watching scary movies when I got to pick and romantic comedies when it was her turn. Her parents would hide away in their rooms while we spread out in the living room, every surfaced covered with blankets and pillows. It was cozy and warm and that was the feeling I used to associate with her. "I missed you," I admitted.

"Hey, Remy," Jared called, pulling my attention away from his girlfriend. "Embry has some company," she said with an edge to her voice, pointing over towards the kitchen

"What?" I asked, sitting up straight, trying to see into the other, much brighter room. I caught sight of my boyfriend, leaning tensely against the kitchen counter with a scowl on his face and an almost crushed plastic cup in his grip, as a brunette with a tight little skirt leaned into him, saying something into his ear. I almost laughed at the sight of it.

Jared said, sounding almost a little too excited. "Kim, you better go get the first aid kit."

Kim nodded. "Yeah, I'll go get Quil too. He'll make sure no one dies, since clearly you won't."

I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the two of them. "Can you guys relax? She's just talking to him, I trust Embry to take care of it himself," I told them easily, though my words were almost slurring together. "I'm not that possessive." Shaking my head, I raised my head to the scene again. And the brunette had moved from leaning towards him, to hooking her arm around his shoulder and rubbing her fingers against her chest. He was speaking, trying to shrug her hold off without hurting her. That was suddenly not a concern of mine. "Never mind."

My boots hit the ground with heavy thuds as I made my way over there as my head spun. I always told myself that I wouldn't ever be the jealous type. I hated the possessiveness and controlling that generally came along with passionate but overall underbaked relationships. But when I saw the way her skin was pressed against Embry, against my boyfriend, all previous moral standings dissolved into the pit of rage in my gut. I heard Embry saying, "No, really, I'm serious," before I reached over and grabbed the back of her shirt, yanking her off my boyfriend and throwing her onto the ground.

There was stillness in the crowd surrounding us as her ass hit the floor and I stared over her, arms crossed. She looked up at me with incredulous eyes. "What the fuck is your problem?" she shouted.

"Why don't you stand up and find out?" I challenged, seething.

Embry was behind me, hand around my bicep and whispering in my ear. "Remy, it's okay. Nothing happened," but I was not listening.

I yanked my arm out of his grip and stared down at the girl, who was hesitantly standing to her feet, brushing off her skirt. "You're fucking insane. Like, batshit crazy," she snarled at me, taking just another step closer.

"Don't ever fucking touch my boyfriend," I told her between gritted teeth. "No one wants your greasy fucking hands all over them."

The girl, with her hair all knotted up and makeup smudged, looked straight past me and to Embry. "When you get sick of psycho over here, call me."

I was surprised when Embry made no attempt to stop me from lunging at her.

My fist made contact with her jaw with a beautiful crunching sound. Her nails were out, reaching for my face and clawing at my cheek. And one of the most valuable lessons I had learned in my time of starting fights was that girls who try to claw your eyes out could never fight. I was feeling confident. And when I was raising my arm to throw another punch in her nose, there was an arm around my waist and I was being tugged away from the girl with the now bleeding lip. "Alright, pack it up slugger," I heard Paul say in my ear as he dragged me out of the kitchen and out the back door. And when he dropped me on the grass I was hit with sobriety.

Third, I remember throwing up.

Embry gathered up tangled knots of my hair in one hand and rubbed between my shoulder blades with the other while I emptied everything that I was into the toilet bowl. I hated puking. I hated the way it bubbled in my gut and I hated the way it felt going up my throat, hot and thick and chunky. I coughed it up, spit dangling from my chin and head pounding. "I think I'm gonna die," I said to my boyfriend, trying my hardest to pretend he hasn't been watching me do this for the past twenty minutes.

"Oh, honey," he cooed, sounding somewhere in between genuine concern and amusement. "Try not to think of it as dying, but as the death of the drunk version of yourself."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Now you know what it's like to talk to you."

I groaned, my body feeling weak and my head splitting. "Please don't," I started, and then gagged, coughing up whatever could possibly be left in my gut. "Please don't be meta right now while I'm literally dying in your arms," I finished, out of breath and sweating.

His hand was gentle against the skin on my back while reached up and flushed away all my vomit. "Do you want me to get you some water?" Embry asked, his voice much gentler than before.

My head shook slowly while I tried to sit up, leaning against the outside of the tub with my eyes closed to protect myself from the harsh lights of the bathroom. "Please don't leave me," I begged of him, not even caring how pathetic I sounded.

Embry reached over and pulled me into his arms, my head resting against his chest. "You know I'm not gonna lie to you," Embry said in a low voice, "watching you beat up that girl over me, that was pretty hot."

Heat crept up my neck and face and I leaned in closer to him. "Can I stay with you tonight?" I asked, my voice sounding like someone else's.

I wasn't sure if I imagined his heart picking up in pace. "Yeah, of course."

Embry's sweatpants were too loose on me. I had to roll them up five times just so I wouldn't trip on them. I was nervous. It was late and it was quite and I was drowning in his clothes, thinking about how this would be the most intimate thing I had ever done. His room was cold, the window wide open and the cold breeze of the night flowing in. I sat on the edge of his bed, fiddling my fingers and trying to imagine falling asleep in his arms. I shuddered.

There was a light knock on his door. "You done?" he asked gently, trying not to wake his mother.

"Yeah," I responded, much softer. I didn't know where all this sheepishness was coming from and where it was my first seventeen years of existence. The door creaked open, and I smiled at the sight of Embry in his basketball shorts with tousled. hair. "You look cozy."

He took a seat next to me, wrapping his arms around my waist. "You do too," he mumbled, his hold gentle on me. "Do you think you're gonna throw up again?"

"No," I answered, feeling embarrassed again. "I think I got it all out."

Embry chuckled lightly, slightly rocking as he held me. I liked touching Embry. I liked him touching me. In that soft way that made me feel safe. It was gentle and loving and it was so different than anything else I had ever felt. Soothing and warm and all-consuming. Embry rocked backwards, falling back into the bed and dragging me with him. And there we were, lying in his bed with our legs tangled up and his chest against my back. And even though I was tired and drunk and I could barely keep my eyes open, I was buzzing with nerves.

There was just something about Embry and the way he made me feel that was so new and different and nothing like I ever thought possible. I thought about him and his kind words and soft laugh and my heart stuttered. I thought about how no matter what happened I always found my way back to him and how that was where I always wanted to be. I thought that maybe I was too young to feel this way but I didn't even really care. With my mind drifting off and my body growing limp, the words, "I think I love you," tumbled out of my lips.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> depression is over. now mania is my new best friend. shoukd i just post everything i have for this story all at once idk


	34. chapter thirty-four: the house

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> :)

I woke up sweating. My skin felt hot all over and baby hairs stuck to the edge of my wet forehead. And before my eyes were even open, I was pushing an impossibly heavy and somehow immovable blanket off of me, thinking only of the way I burned under all that heat. I groaned, my palms flat against whatever it was that was weighing me down. I curled my fingers around it, trying to worm my way out when I realized, that holy shit, holy fuck, that was an arm. My eyes shot open, careful not to move too harshly.

He was there, lying on his side with his cheek smooshed up against his pillow and his arm and leg flung over me. I was slow to recollect how I ended up there, trying to remember the steps in between emptying my entire self into the toilet bowl to waking up with Embry crushing me in his sleep. My head was still fuzzy and half of me was still so preoccupied with how uncomfortable the heat was. But Embry looked so peaceful there, with his mouth half open and the occasional soft snores. I shifted, rolling onto my side to face him.

There was this gentleness in Embry that entranced me, and I could see it on his face while he slept. I think that before I mistook it as weakness, thinking that the way he ignored all the fights I tried to pick with him and that softness in his eyes was a flaw. But I was wrong, like I constantly was about him. There was nothing weak about him. Embry was strong in ways that I didn't think I was capable of; in his open vulnerabilities and in the way he cared. I raised my hand, my fingers tracing along his jawline and towards his lips. Maybe it was me who was weak.

His skin was soft under the tips of my fingers. He was pretty. I thought maybe he was prettier than me. It didn't bother me. I liked having a pretty boyfriend. A pretty soft boyfriend that cared deeply and openly and held my hair while I was sick and protected me and turned into a giant wolf.

"Am I dreaming?" Embry mumbled against my thumb, eyes still closed. His voice was lower and raspier and thick with exhaustion.

A smile grew on my face. "Yeah," I replied in a hushed voice. "When you wake up, I'll be gone and Quil'll be in my place."

Slowly, Embry opened his eyes. They dilated, focusing on me. "Oh, well that's disappointing. I was really looking forward to snuggling up to Quil. It's been a while." I laughed, letting a toothy smiled settle on my lips. I liked waking up next to Embry. "Can I tell you something without you getting mad at me?" he asked suddenly, trying to hide a grin.

"Why do you always ask that?"

Embry wasted no time in replying, "Your breath stinks." And suddenly I didn't like waking up next to him anymore. I glared, quickly leaning over him and placing my face over his. With determination, I blew out a stream of air towards his face. "No, please don't! Remy you're gonna kill me. God it's so bad."

"Fine," I said in a huff, rolling away from him. "I'll just go home, all the way back to Bobby's, so I can brush my teeth so you won't die."

"No," Embry said firmly, his arm suddenly over my waist and pulling me tightly into him. "Stay with me."

I smiled, careful not to let out any of that toxic breath that would've left him debilitated. "How'd you sleep?"

"Best night of sleep I've ever had," Embry said, grinning, and I didn't care about the heat that radiated off of him. "You?"

Shrugging, I replied, "Too hot. You're like a walking radiator; it's ridiculous."

"It's useful," he argued, arms still tight around me and I threw him a look. "Trust me, when winter hits you're gonna be all, _Embry I'm cold, will you stand near me? Embry, you're too far away and I'm cold. Embry can you come over? I'm cold_ ," he mocked, his voice in that shaky, high-pitched tone he always used to imitate me.

"Hmmm, I don't think so. I handle the cold really well," I told him, and put a hand on his chest. "It's a good thing you'll have Quil, though." Embry didn't say anything, he just stared down at me with a goofy looking grin and a dopey look in his eyes. "What are you smiling at?"

"You said you love me."

My face flushed and the idea and it was with horror that I realized that he was right. In a drunken and emotional moment on my way to sobriety, I told Embry that I loved him. That I thought I loved him. I wanted to hit myself. "That doesn't sound like something I would do."

The grin on Embry's face never left or wavered. "Yeah but you like, totally did."

"Hmmm, I dunno. I don't think I did."

"No, you did. You absolutely did."

"Maybe you misheard me, I think that's more likely," I argued, not ready to admit anything aloud. If I said it out loud, then it would become something true that I couldn't take back. "Maybe what I actually said was, 'I loathe you,' because you make me sweaty and you smell bad."

Embry laughed incuriously. "I'm sorry? I smell bad? Say that again with your morning breath."

"Why are you so mean?" I whined, burying my face in his pillow. "You're actually a bully."

"Just say it," Embry pleaded. "Like just once, c'mon."

"No."

"C'mon, say you love me. I'm dying to hear it."

"Then die."

"Remy, c'mon. Just once. Then you never have to say it again until I'm dying."

"What?"

"Just once now, and then again when I'm dying. Those are the only times you ever have to admit out loud that you love me."

"Don't you have to say it for like, wedding vows?"

I froze as the meaning and implication of what I said was realized. And my face was so hot I thought that maybe my temperature could've compared with Embry's and I buried my face so deep into his pillow that there might've been a possibility of me suffocating and not having to have this conversation. "Wedding vows?" Embry repeated, and I could tell from his tone that he was really enjoying this moment.

"Fucking hell," I groaned into the pillow.

"This is the best day of my life," he beamed.

"Shut up."

"Well, I mean, if you wanna talk about a wedding-"

I brought my hands up to slightly tug at the roots of my hair. "I'm killing myself."

"Stop it," he scolded. "Just admit that you love me and you wanna marry me and that-"

"If you don't stop I swear to god I'm going to go commit a crime," I cut him off, not ready to hear the rest of that sentence and what other possibilities he was going to force me to imagine.

"Okay, I'll stop," he conceded, and rolled over onto his back. And then, after a moment, he added on, "when you admit that you love me."

"Do you have fun embarrassing me?" I questioned, sitting up to face him and his stupid handsome grin. "Like is this a fun activity to you?"

"Yeah, actually, it is Remy," he replied, propping his weight up on his elbows. "It's my favorite activity. If I could, I would do this for a job. You're just so cute when you blush and get all embarrassed."

I glared at him. My scary glare, with eyes narrowed and my jaw locked and he just grinned at me, leaning over to place a kiss on the center of my forehead. And I thought that Embry Call was the only person in the world who could do this to me and live, so with a great reluctance, I mumbled, barely comprehensible, "I love you."

"What?" Embry said, cupping his hand to his ear and furrowing his features together. "I couldn't really hear that. Can you speak a little louder?"

I hit his arm, and he laughed. "I love you," I enunciated, forcing each syllable through my teeth. "And that's the last one you get before you die."

"Except at our wedding."

I collapsed into the sheets, groaning so loudly I could barely hear his laughter.

* * *

"Are you sure you wanna do this?" Quil asked, his pace just a few steps behind mine. He was nervous, looking around like he was afraid he was gonna get caught and get in trouble for enabling me. But if there was one person that I trusted to do this with me, and one person that I knew could do this with me, it was Quil. Because even though me and Embry were unconditionally bound to each other for the rest of our lives, Quil was the only other person I knew that didn't want to kill my brother.

I knew Embry wanted to kill him. It was something that he would never admit out loud to me, and something I would never make him say. But I would never forget the way he filled up with rage and indignation and flung his fist into the nearest wall when the redhead showed up in my brother's place. He could barely stand him before that, and I knew that any tolerance Embry had for my brother was diminished, and that I was the only thing holding him back from completely destroying Bear.

I didn't know what was going on with Bear anymore. I was just as lost as I was before, disoriented and suspended in water, not knowing which way was the surface and which way would drown me. I didn't know if I believed what he told me and I didn't know why he told my parents the truth or even what version of the truth he told them. It strung me out and made me itch for a cigarette, thinking of the unfinished and barely opened pack I had hidden in my socks.

Still, the idea that my parents knew ignited some sort of hope in me. I didn't know for what, or how, but I had this idea, this picture in my head of the truth uniting us. I wouldn't have to hide things from my parents and they would hug me and apologize and all those cuts would be stitched up. I thought that maybe something in my mother had changed when she learned the truth, and that she would have reflected and thought about it and the things Bear told her and some switch inside her would've flipped.

"Why does everyone always ask me that?" I asked Quil. "Yeah, I'm sure I wanna do this."

"Because you never think anything through," he replied quickly as we approached the driveway to my home.

"Well, that's why I'm sure I wanna do this. I never think the ideas through enough to not do them. I just act," I told him, moving quickly. And even though I didn't give myself the time to think about the potential negative outcomes, my hands were shaking and my legs were moving just a little bit too quickly to pass for a casual pace. "And y'know, some people enjoy that quality in others."

The exasperation in Quil's voice was painfully evident when he said, "Embry's not gonna be happy when he found out you went to see them."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Embry respects me enough to make my own decisions. He'll get over it," I said, and then halted.

My house looked the same as it always looked, but the sight of it left me knotted up and wrecked on the inside. And then it wasn't just my hands, it was my whole body that was shaking. I was alive with nerves and I thought that I might throw up again. I stared at the home, thinking of a time when it used to be mine. I couldn't remember the last time I was there, when I frantically gathered my things into a duffle bag and fled, but I felt like it was in a different lifetime. And while I stood still, Quil stepped up beside me and said, "Remy, you weren't there. I was. I heard the things your parents said and I just don't think it's a good idea to-"

"Shut up, Quil. Alright?" I said, shooting him a glare. Big Brother Quil, who wasn't really my big brother, just a friend that was out of his mind trying to protect me from the inevitable. "Just let me talk to them myself."

And despite the sureness in my tone, my legs felt heavy like concrete when I tried to walk up to the front door. I took a deep breath, trying to quell my nerves. I thought of the calmness I felt around Embry, the serenity of waking up next to him in the morning and I tried to take that feeling with my as I summoned up the courage to move my legs towards the front door.

A million thoughts and a million possibilities played out in my head and I tried to decide whether I should knock or just open the door, because I wasn't sure if this could even be considered my home anymore. But by the time I reached the door and my hand was halfway extended, unsure of what to do, the door flung open. I stood, paralyzed.

My dad was on the other side. He looked like himself, but he was different. Worn down, eyes heavy and gray in his hair. He looked skinnier, skin sagging off of him like it was waiting for him to eat again and so it could fit him once more. His eyes were wide at the sight of me, shining and glossy and filled with something I couldn't comprehend. I bet I looked a lot different to him too. The last time he saw me I was skinny and angry and on the verge of breaking. I had what he lacked, and that was a fullness to me. A fulfillment.

"Rosemary," he said, and it felt strange. My full name usually meant something disastrous for me, usually meant that I had fucked up pretty bad. But the way he said it, it was filled with an emotion that I couldn't place. An emotion that only a father riddled with grief could experience, I guessed. He cleared his throat. "Remy," he said again.

My weight shifted from foot to foot. "Hey Dad," I greeted, like it was casual. Like it was nothing. Like I was just a girl saying hi to her father. I felt bad for my dad, at times, thinking of how he got caught up in the crossroads of a volatile mother and her volatile children. But then I remembered how he hid from us and how he let us destroy each other with no intervention. "What's up?"

I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. My father stood there, silent and still and stared at me as if I was the second child to come back from the dead. The ball was in his court, and he wasn't doing anything, just staring down at me with some look in his eye that was beyond my emotional intelligence. He just stood there, gaping, and I heard Quil take a few steps to stand behind me, keeping his distance. My dad didn't notice, but I was hyperaware. Having a werewolf on my side made this situation a little bit less intimidating.

And before my dad could even say anything, before I could even watch him process his emotions, thundering footsteps yanked me out of my stupor, my father as well. That pointed stomp lit my nerves on fire; it was the same pointed and angry stomped I inherited, the one I used against her constantly. My mother stomped her feet as she approached the door, loud and purposeful, and she yanked my father out of her way, grabbing him by the arm and making him stumble backyards. I got to look at my mother and her red eyes and tired wrinkles for about three seconds before she pulled her hand back and smacked me across the face.

I stumbled back. I wasn't sure if it was the blow or the shock of it but I lost my footing and I tumbled back into Quil, who caught me by the arm. "My son is alive!" she screeched, voice shaking and as unstable as her. "My son is alive and you didn't tell me!"

Words escaped me. I stared up at my mother with a sudden and powerful vile hatred and I hated myself for letting me have a moment of hope. I didn't say anything. I couldn't say anything. And while Quil held onto my arm, my father gripped onto my mother, holding her back from me. "Jan, please," he said to her, voice too panicked to be concealed.

But my mother was my mother. She was fire and rage and she was a punk and a rebel and I guessed that was something you never grew out of. It was something you just had to carry with you for the rest of your life and something you had to force upon your children when it got too heavy to carry on your own. "You're a selfish, selfish girl," she snarled at me, hatred in her voice so dripping it stung. "I am your mother! And you never treated me with respect. You never treated your father with respect. And you kept things from us and you hid things from us and I know you were hurting when you thought you lost your brother but we were hurting too! And you could've spared us from that pain but you didn't! You left us alone to suffer while you ran off with your wolf boys," she yelled, gesturing wildly at Quil. Her skin was tight and her movements jerky and uncontrolled. "Why? Why would you leave us to hurt in the dark?"

I bit down on my lip, trying to piece things together. Trying to come up with something. But I felt empty. I felt drained. I felt disappointed for the last time. And I thought that I knew the whole time, that my mother was not a mother but a narcissist, but there was some childish hope inside of me. Some light that left me craving for a maternal touch. But it was gone and suddenly there was nothing left to feel towards her. No more anger and no more sadness and I just clenched my fists and my side and said, "You deserve it," not because I thought it would hurt her, because I thought it was true.

I turned on my heel, taking long strides away from a home that was no longer mine. Quil wasn't by my side. He stayed back while my dad called out my name and I didn't look back to see why.

* * *

"I can't believe you went to see your parents."

I lifted my shoulder to press the phone up against my ear while my hands worked on concealing the bruise that was growing on my cheek. Still, no matter how much of Bobby's expensive concealer I poured on my face, the dark purple was still visible. "Well, you should probably start believing it, because I like, totally did."

Embry sighed on the other line. Quil was right; Embry wasn't happy. Apparently he was so not happy about it that Quil had to do some serious convincing to stop Embry from calling the cops on my mom. "Well, you, like, totally shouldn't have."

"Embry, they're my parents, alright?" I said, exasperated, giving up on the makeup and taking the phone in my hand again. "Was I just expected to never talk to them again?"

"Yes!" he practically yelled on the other line. "They're not good parents, Rem. Your mom hit you," he spit out like that was the most repulsive thing he ever had to say. "And you promise me that was the first time she ever put her hands on you like that?"

I rolled my eyes. It was endearing, how protective Embry was most of the time, but right now it was just irritating me. "Yes, Embry, it was the first time she hit me. I probably would've left a long time ago if my mother was like, actually abusing me."

"Remy, you're mother has been actually abusing you," he said firmly on the other line. "Alright? Just because this was the first time she physically hurt you, doesn't mean she has been hurting you in other ways." I didn't say anything. I just let those words sit with me for a little bit, repeating them in my head and thinking about what it could mean. "I'm not saying this stuff to be a dick, Rem. I just," he paused, letting out a sigh, " I don't want her to hurt you anymore."

With the phone still at my ear, I stepped out of Bobby's bedroom and rushed down the staircase. "I don't think you have to worry about that anymore," I told him, landing at the bottom of the steps. "I'm definitely not going back there again. Bridge burned. Consider me an orphan now."

Bobby was in the kitchen, putting together some cheese and cracker dish. She had me on some sort of fattening diet to help me gain back some weight, which I found vaguely insulting, but I still couldn't argue with the results. I felt more like muscle and less like bone. "Maybe you could get emancipated," Embry suggested on the other line.

"What's the point? I turn eighteen in like, eight months," I said, and Bobby shot me a questioning look. "Listen, worse come to worse, I'll just live in the woods like a hermit."

"You're not funny."

"Yes, I am," I insisted. "I'm gonna go, though. Bobby's making me food and if I don't eat soon she'll stab me."

I could hear him rolling his eyes. "I'm not worried. You could take Bobby," he said. "I'll talk to you later. Love you."

My heart lurched at his words and with a heavy blush, I said, "Love you too," and hung up my phone before throwing it off into the living room.

Bobby raised an eyebrow at me. "'Love you?'"

"I don't wanna talk about it," I said with a tone of finality, opening the fridge and pouring myself a glass of orange juice.

"You know," Bobby started, cutting up thin slices of stupidly expensive gouda to put on her stupidly expensive rosemary crackers, "one day I'm gonna figure out what's going on."

I choked on my orange juice. "What'd you mean?"

"You don't have to tell me," she said, sounding a little coy. "I figure if you could tell me, you probably would. But like, I know there's something weird going on and you're not allowed to say anything. So like, I just wanna let you know, I'm not mad at you for not telling me. I'm gonna figure it out on my own."

Perplexed, I stared at her for a minute and wondered just how much more astute she was than me. "Hopefully you figure it out faster than I did," I tell her, voice low and mumbling.

A gasp, a sound so high-pitched and offended, came from her lips and she looked over at me in disbelief. "You bitch! I fucking knew something was up!" she exclaimed with a giggle in her voice. "Tell me what it is."

"Oh come on. You can't fake me out like that!" I argued back, grabbing one of her stupid crackers and throwing it back in her direction. She gasped as it hit her in the forehead and I reached for another one. "I'm sick of you and your mind games."

Bobby erupted into a fit of giggles, rolling her head back and throwing her fist in air victoriously. "I can't believe that worked. I'm literally a genius. Holy shit."

"How did you know?" I asked her, hoping that I didn't just ruin something for Leah Clearwater.

She straightened up, shrugging. "I mean, it's kind of obvious right? Everyone knows your boyfriend and his friends act weird in that little group together. And the fact that Leah hangs out with them? It's mad suspicious. Also, don't think I forgot about your brother and that whole situation. Like, obviously something's going on."

I stuffed my mouth with cheese and tried to change the subject. "Speaking of Leah, how's it going with her?

Bobby rolled her eyes at me. "Well, it'd probably be going a lot better if you didn't cock block me the other night."

I winched. "Yeah, that's my bad."

"I think it's going good, though," Bobby continued. "She doesn't wanna talk about the kiss but we've still been spending time together and taking it slow. I think it's better now that like, I know she's interested. I think she's just kinda traumatized from her last relationship," Bobby explained, dropping the knife and trying out a sliver of gouda. "So you went to see your mom? How'd that go?"

"What, you mean it isn't obvious?" I said, gesturing to the growing bruise on my face. "She's still the same bitch."

She sighed, leaning against the counter and looking at me with sad eyes. "We gotta get our own place," she said, munching on a cracker. "Do you know how to build a house?"

Embry had frowned at me. "When I leave you with Quil, you end up covered in bruises. When I leave you with Bobby, you get drunk and leave people unconscious. When I leave you with Paul, you try to kill him. When I leave you with Jacob, you convince him to destroy his bikes. You leave me absolutely no choice but to leave you with the one person I know you can't corrupt."

Seth Clearwater was my polar opposite. Everything that I was, he wasn't. While I walked around with a scowl and a sneer and hands curled up into tight fists, Seth walked around with a smile that was too bright and arms open like he was constantly ready to go in for a hug. And while I was waiting for my boyfriend to hunt down my older brother and figure out what the fuck was going on with him, Seth's positive energy and overwhelming joy was the last thing I needed. It was the last thing I needed on a good day.

"So if you had to commit a crime," I asked Seth, looking through my deck of cards, "what crime would you commit?"

Seth paused, pursing his lips and tilting his head and thinking about his answer like this was the most important question he had ever been asked. "I dunno, probably like tax evasion? Maybe breaking and entering. I've always wanted to go to a supermarket after it closes. Do you have any sevens?"

"Go fish," I lied, looking at the seven in my deck. "Why a supermarket?"

"So I could eat the food and then steal a bunch of groceries and I wouldn't have to go grocery shopping for a while. What about you? What crime would you commit?" he asked, adding another card to his deck.

I rested my chin on the top of my knee, my back against the couch of Sam and Emily's home. I was starting to spend just as much time here as I spent at Bobby's and I didn't even know why. "I'd probably check a felony assault charge. Or like, maybe inciting a riot. Do you have any sevens?"

He sighed, fishing through his deck and pulling out the card and reluctantly handing it over to me. "How long have they been gone?" Seth asked, eyebrows furrowed as he glared down at his deck.

I shrugged. "I dunno. Probably like three hours now. How long does it normally take to track someone?"

"Usually until they find them."

"Do you have any two's?" Seth groaned, handing me over yet another card and I wondered how he hadn't figured out that I was cheating yet. "Why do I have to get babysat every time they go out to look for Bear?" I asked.

"I'm not babysitting you. You're older than me." I glared at him, and he sighed. "I think it's just in case Briah thinks you're alone and he comes to find you while they're looking for him. No one wants you to be alone and unprotected."

"You mean Embry doesn't want me alone and unprotected."

"No," Seth corrected, "no one wants you unprotected. You're an imprint, that means you're part of our pack, and we all look out for each other. We all care about you and want you safe."

"Not Jared," I argued.

"Yes, Jared. He won't admit it, but if Jared saw someone trying to hurt you, he'd kick their ass. Do you have any four's?"

Begrudgingly, I handed Seth the four in my deck. I had to hand one over every now and again, otherwise he'd get suspicious. "Would you ever want that? Like, an imprint, I mean?"

Seth paused, dropping his deck down to his side and letting me have a good look at his cards. "I dunno. I think I'm too young for that kind of commitment. I'd wanna like, get a dog first, to practice."

I snorted. "Why a dog?"

"To practice taking care of someone! I dunno! I've never had to do that before," he said. "It sounds like a lot of work. Do you have any ace's?"

"Hey, it was literally my turn," I lied again, and Seth frowned. "Do you have any ace's?"

Seth pouted. "I hate playing card games with you."

Fortunately for Seth, our game was interrupted by the sound of the door swinging open. I shot up, dropping my cards and rushing for the door, ignoring the way Seth called back, "Hey, you were cheating!" as I walked into the kitchen.

The smell of blood hit me like a truck and I was so suddenly out of breath that I thought I might pass out. Embry looked at me with sad eyes as a limp and half conscious Quil hung off of his shoulder.

* * *


	35. chapter thirty-five: the fight

"Remy-oof-can...you...please...do this with fuck...with someone else, please," Bobby panted, looking like she was ready to collapse. I stepped back, cracking my neck and shaking my arms while I started to jog in place, observing her. Her arms hung limp by her side, boxing mitts looking comically large attached to her skinny little arms. "You've done it, Remy. You did it. You've proved yourself. You're strong, you're tough. I get it. Please let me lie down now."

I didn't stop moving, watching as she struggled to get the mitts off. She was nice enough to come down to Sam's house when I told her Quil was hurt and not ask questions so I would be nice and let her off the hook. And I wished I was in a better mood because I would've laughed at the way she brought her foot up to try and kick it off. "Paul!" I called, not looking over my shoulder to where the older boy sat on the edge of Sam's porch. "Fill in for Bobby."

"Thank god. I'm going fucking stir crazy over here."

No one was in a good mood. No one was happy and everyone was on edge, uneasy and irritable and ready to crack open a skull of a certain immortal. I kept moving. I kept hitting. Because if I was exhausted and moving and hitting something then I wouldn't have time to think about what happened and I wouldn't have time to think about the fact that Big Brother Quil was lying in on a couch that wasn't his, getting his bones rebroken. I watched as Paul took the mitts off of Bobby's limp hand, shoving them onto his own and clapping them together while the smaller girl stumbled away. "Let's go!" he shouted at me, ready to do something other than just sitting there and listening to the cracking and the snapping. And I swung.

My muscles didn't ache and my lungs didn't burn and I threw hook after hook in Paul's direction. Embry was inside. He was sitting by Quil's side while that marble statue of a doctor tended to the wounds of my cousin and I was out here throwing punches and failing and trying not to think about it. I didn't think I could face Quil. I didn't think I could look him in the eyes knowing that my brother did what he did to him and knowing that I would still elect to keep him alive. I didn't wanna talk to Quil because I didn't wanna have to ask him if he wanted Bear dead too and I hated myself for not being brave enough to comfort my friend when it was my family that hurt him.

Paul wasn't budging. It was pissing me off and it looked like it was pissing him off too. He kept yelling, shouting and trying to be motivational and I tried to punch harder but I kept imagining Quil's screams as his bones were snapped in half and the way he bleed when he was dragged across the kitchen and how that blood spilled onto my shirt when I tried to help. I tried to think of what I would do when I saw Bear again but I didn't even know if I would see him again and that made me sad and angry and my arms felt like blocks of concrete as I plunged my fists into Paul.

They told me what happened after I stumbled outside, hands still extended like I was waiting for Quil to fall into me. Bear was out east, by the parking garage where he met up with me. And they had him cornered and outnumbered and Quil, optimistic and still longing for the person Bear was before he changed, phased back. Left himself exposed and vulnerable, with Embry by his side. And I guessed it worked, for a bit, while Quil tried to talk him off the ledge. Calm him down and get him to talk and try to figure out what the hell his end game was and what the fuck he was doing. And it worked, until Quil told him about imprinting.

I dunno why he did. I figured he thought it would reassure him, let him know I was safe and that he didn't have to worry about me or Embry leaving me because I would always be fine. But it didn't work the way he wanted it to. Because when Quil started to explain, Briah acted in a very Briah like fashion and lunged, aiming for my boyfriend, who stood behind Quil. And Quil, being Quil, unprotected and unphased, stepped in front of Embry and took the blunt of the blow. So Quil ended up with a deep, deep gash down his side and a couple broken ribs.

He would be okay. This we knew. Because he had accelerated healing and that stupid vampire doctor to fix incorrect bone growth and make sure he healed well. But it did leave me feeling any better. Quil could've died. Quil could've died because my brother wanted to kill Embry and I was thinking that everyone would be safe and unharmed if I just let them take care of my brother the way they take care of all vampires.

But I couldn't. Even with my gut lurching and my heart heavy over what happened to Quil, I couldn't stomach the idea of letting anything happen to my brother. I couldn't let him be dead again. I pulled my arm back and hit the center of the mitt, wanting so desperately to shake Paul. To make him budge. I scowled. "Don't hurt yourself, kid."

"Stop calling me kid," I commanded him, throwing a jab, harder than I had been but not as hard as I wanted to. Paul already reminded me too much of my brother; he didn't need to talk like him too. Calling me kid and telling me to punch harder and pushing me further than I needed to be pushed.

"Stop punching like one," he shot back.

I growled, taking a heavy breath and throwing more of my weight into each blow. Paul made a good coach, I figured, but it was the last thing I needed. "Stop being a dick."

With every punch I threw, I could feel myself getting weaker and the power behind each blow dwindling. There was some emptiness inside of me that felt heavier than the gloves on my hands and it weighed me down. And when I started to feel like I couldn't keep hitting and fighting and like my arms were gonna fall off, Sam stepped onto the porch and called my name. I stopped suddenly, staring over to him with wide and expectant eyes. "Quil wants to see you."

He was lying on the couch in the living room, which I couldn't help but notice had small patches of rust-colored stains that weren't there just a few hours ago. Quil's shirt, ripped up and bloodied, was discarded on the floor beside him, and I could see that what was once a deadly-looking cut that stretched from his shoulder to the bottom of his ribs was now nothing but a light pink scar on his skin. I imagined in a few hours it would be nothing and that brought some comfort.

"Hey, Quil," I said softly, folding my legs at my knees and sitting on the floor beside him.

His eyes were closed when he spoke. "You don't have to use your nice voice with me, Rem. It's not like I have cancer. Just like, a lot of bones that got broken."

I smiled. "How're you feeling?"

"Like I just had my ribs broken three times over," Quil groaned, and slowly opened his eyes, blinking them a few times before they focused on me. He looked more tired than I had ever seen him before.

"Oh, that's it? I thought it was something worse," I half-heartedly teased, earning a light chuckle from him. And suddenly I was reminded of the moment Quil leaned against my kitchen counter and told me he thought of me as a sister and I thought that maybe I wasn't appreciating Quil the way I should've and I wondered how that would've felt if that injury had just been a little bit too severe. "Seriously, I'm sorry this happened," I told him, my voice thick was something that I was worried might come out as tears.

Quil dropped his hand and smacked it against the top of my head in what I thought was supposed to be comforting but it just made me flinch. "You don't have to apologize. If anything, it's my fault. Underestimated Briah and how much he hates Embry," he paused, eyes faraway like he was recollecting details of what happened. "Cause like, he really fucking hates Embry."

"Well, they're definitely not about to win the cutest couple, that's for sure," I mumbled, taking his hand off my head and placing it back over his chest.

"He's still himself, y'know," Quil told me, his voice taking a tone of sincerity that wasn't common with him. "I could see. Under like, three thousand layers of anger issues and trauma, he's still Briah. I could tell."

And suddenly I couldn't meet his eye and I was looking at my hands knotting together when I said to him, "He shouldn't have done this to you."

"He didn't mean to," Quil argued, quick to defend him. "I don't blame him. Well, I mean, I'm not like, happy about this, and I'm totally gonna kick his ass, but he doesn't deserve to die. Especially not cause of this."

"I'm glad you're okay," I told him, and then looked back up at him when I said, "It was kinda dumb for you to tell him, though."

"In my defense, I am kinda of dumb." There was a heavy pause between us before Quil said, "I wish this went down better."

"Yeah." I paused, looking down at my feet for a moment. "You're okay, though?"

"Yeah, I'm okay, Rem. Don't worry about me," he said like it was nothing, like my brother didn't almost kill him. I didn't know if that was just Quil, calmed and relaxed and never taking anything too seriously, or if he was just putting this front up for me so I didn't freak out more. "You should probably go talk to Em, though, he's a little too on edge. I think he might break something."

My heart was beating hard against my chest, pumping something thick and sharp throughout my entire body. "You sure you gonna be okay here?"

Quil shot me a halfhearted look like I was being difficult. "Remy, there are like, eight other people here. I'll be fine if you go and talk to Embry, alright? Just go and make sure he's alright."

The air felt different when I stepped outside, charged, darker and cooler than before. The sweat on the back of my neck and cooled and the wind that blew through my hair sent chills down my side. Bobby was resting on the hood of her car with Leah Clearwater next to her, holding her hand and half asleep. Jared and Kim were lying on the grass, pointing out the stars as they appeared in the sky. Paul and Seth were on the porch, leaning against the front of the house, tense and staring ahead like something had their attention fixed. And Embry wasn't anywhere to be seen.

My eyes scanned the yard and the edge of the woods for any sight of him and I didn't see him inside but he hadn't been outside the entire time I was there. And I was just standing there, feeling stupid and confused and the only person who decided to put me out of my misery was Leah Clearwater. "He's not here," she called to me, after watching me stare for a minute.

I furrowed my brow. "Where'd he go?" I asked, my voice sounding more raw than I wanted to let on. I didn't want to dwell on the reasons Embry would've snuck out without saying anything to me.

"I dunno. Said he wanted to be alone and he ran off," Leah replied, while Bobby still leaned into her side. "Want me to take you guys home?"

I nodded. "Please."

* * *

"Are they like, the X-Men or something?" Bobby asked, her legs crossed as I lied across the edge of her bed. Spending time with Bobby felt like a rarity, even though I was living in her home. She had become so infatuated with Leah Clearwater that she tried to spend all of her time with the older girl. And I guessed her persistence was working, because from what I heard, Leah went from begrudgingly wanting to hang out with Bobby every now and then to openly being excited about the time she would spend with her. And it's not like Bobby was entirely to blame for the decrease in our time together, either. The vampire brother problem took up a lot of time.

Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet was playing and even though Bobby had insisted on watching it, she kept me there to distract her so she wouldn't start crying. I was surprised to find myself more transfixed by it than she was. "Do you mean like, are they part of an organization of superhumans?"

"Yeah."

I rolled around to look at Bobby. "No."

She groaned, falling back on her bed and letting her head slam against her pillow. "This is impossible. How long did it take for you to figure it out?"

"Like, a year," I told her honestly. "And even then, I didn't figure it out on my own. Someone had to tell me. So like, maybe you just have to trick someone into telling you."

Bobby perked up. "Do you think that'll work?"

"No, but I think it would be funny if you tried."

Claire Danes was twirling behind the fish tank, some gleeful smile playing on her lips as Leonardo DiCaprio stared at her, eyes wide with wonder. I used to think that that moment was something superficial and plastic and that there was no love between Romeo and Juliet and instead some heavy infatuation that caused nothing but pain and loss but I felt different now. I watched the scene with bated breath as he chased after her, so in love so rapidly and so desperate for her presence. It was so romantic; bursting with passion and a burning desire that was all consuming and so visceral.

I saw Embry fall to his knees at the sight of me and felt my heart swell and wondered how different things would be if I let myself be consumed by the tugging in my chest that always pulled me back to him and suddenly I missed him so much it made me sick. I sighed, leaning forward and watching and wondering how something that looked so magical and so special could ever belong to me. I didn't think anything could be mine that wasn't broken and the concept of imprinting seemed so straightforward and easy, like falling in love through a fish tank. But there was something about it that left me knotted and feeling nervous. I had unstable footing on it.

I didn't know how much of Embry was in love with me and how much of him was bound to me because of the imprint. I chewed on the inside of my cheek and I was thinking about how he left before and how he was doing it again and I wondered why the universe would pair me up with someone who runs away when things get harder when my life was such a consistent mess. But I tried not to hold it against him because I remembered what the echoes of Quil's screams sounded like and I couldn't imagine hearing it up close like Embry did.

And maybe he needed time away from me because I reminded him too much of Briah and he wanted Briah dead.

"What are you thinking about so hard over there?" Bobby asked from behind me, gently kicking my back with the tip of her toes.

My eyes were still on the screen when I said, "I dunno. Love and shit, I guess."

Bobby looked at me with knowing eyes but didn't say anything else. What could she say? There were so many different layers to my relationship with Embry that I couldn't even begin to dissect them all, let alone Bobby. Everything that could've been said was already said and I suddenly felt for Leah Clearwater, who would have to have the simple and easy relationship with Bobby only to rip the rug out from under her feet. Things were hard when they didn't need to be and I felt like I was in a perpetual state of falling, waiting for my back to hit the ground and the breath to be knocked out of my chest.

I held my breath as DiCaprio dropped the poison down his throat.

* * *

My legs and hands were shaking and I didn't know if I was dumb or desperate but it had been a full twenty-four hours and Embry hadn't answered my calls or texts and it got to the point where I called his mom and asked about him, and I was graced with the lie that he was just staying at Quil's. And I knew he needed his time but I didn't want him to leave again and I figured drastic measures and putting myself in harm's way might be the only way to accomplish things.

The sun had been set for a while and after a while of walking on the trail I decided to step off, walking through the maze of trees and trying not to trip over the rocks and sticks that littered the ground. It was cool for a summer's night and there were lines of goosebumps up my legs and my sneakers were covered in wet and heavy mud.

I knew he would know I was here since he always seemed to find me and know where I would end up. I stopped at a fallen tree, sitting on the damp bark and crossing my legs. I could wait for him.

And I didn't have to wait long. It was only a couple minutes before I heard the rustling of the trees and the cracking of twigs before Embry emerged from the trees. There was something different in his eyes, something grave and exhausted and heavy. His eyes looked stormy and dark and Embry looked at me like I was the last person he wanted to see.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked from a distance while I remained seated on the fallen tree. And I wondered if there would ever be a time when Embry would get tired of my little stunts and the way I acted out and I wondered if there was a limit to how much he could put up with from me.

"Trying to have a conversation with my boyfriend," I replied easily, holding my ankles in my hands. "I thought the digital age was supposed to make this stuff easier."

He looked me up and down, examining me for cuts and bruises. "It's not safe out here, Remy. You could've gotten hurt."

"You could've texted me back."

He didn't say anything for a bit. Hands stuffed in the pockets of his shorts and shoulders tensed, he stood there, looking everywhere but at me. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to comfort people; the act didn't come naturally to me and anything that I could say to him to get him to talk would feel forced and unnatural and corny and what I wanted to say would just make everything worse.

Because what I wanted to tell him was that he was being stupid. That he couldn't just go wolf any time he was upset and disappear behind the scent of wet dirt and pine and ignore me until he was feeling better. And I wanted to tell him that yeah, Quil got hurt but he was fine and he would be fine and no damage was done that was irreparable and to sit there and bury yourself alive in the endless what-if's would only make everything worse. I wanted to tell him to stop running away from everything and face it head on. But whereas I was bold and confrontational and stomping my foot down and swinging my fists, Embry was subversive and delicate and went under things instead of through them.

But I couldn't, so I said nothing, and watched his eyes flicker from my feet to his.

"It's my fault," he said suddenly. His voice was raw, like he had spent the afternoon screaming and it made me tense.

"It's not your fault."

"He was lunging for me and he was going for me and-"

"It's not your fault."

"It is."

"It's not, Embry."

"Remy, you don't know! Alright?" he yelled in a rare display of rage. It made me flinch. The anger in his voice was so raw and so granulated and it sank deep into the layers of my skin. "You weren't there and you didn't see it happen and it should've been me."

"Would that make things better?" I tried to reason with him, jumping off the tree and taking a step towards him. My stare was hard on him and he still couldn't meet my eye. "Like, seriously, what would be different about this scenario right now if it was you bleeding out instead?" He didn't say anything, just fixated his eyes on the ground beneath him. I kept going. "Quil's gonna be fine, alright? And if it was you in his place everyone would be just as worried and just as mad and they would want Briah dead just as much. Don't talk to me like I don't understand."

"You don't understand, Rem. It's not the same because if it was me, then I could've defended myself."

"And then what? What would've happened then, Embry? You would've fought my brother to the death? Two men enter, one man leaves?"

"I didn't say that," he said quickly, but I knew it was true.

There was a darkness and a stillness in the woods that made me feel like me and Embry were the only two people in the world. Like there was nothing but us and our fight and our yelling. "Quil did what he did because he knew that if you two fought then only one of you would make it out alive and he did that knowing the risks."

"I don't know what I would've done if Quil died and it was my fault."

"It wouldn't have been your fault; it would've been Briah's. And I know you have this weird guilt thing over it. And believe me, I get it. I felt that way when I thought Bear was dead, for the first couple months. But Quil's gonna be fine, and you just have to accept things for what they are and, y'know, deal with it."

Embry's jaw locked. "I have to end this, Remy."

My heart stopped in my chest. "What does that mean, Embry?" He didn't say anything and I hated when he did that. When he said something he was afraid to say and then tried to back out of it right after he said it. He looked up, but not at me. Straight over my head, like I wasn't there. "What does that mean, Embry?"

"What would you have wanted me to do if he killed Quil?" he questioned me, ignoring the way my fists were tightening at my side. "If your brother had killed Quil, your cousin and my best friend, what would you want me to do?"

My bottom lip was trembling and suddenly I was filled with this hysteria. "It doesn't matter because it didn't happen."

"But it does matter because it could've happened. So I need you to answer the question. Remy," he took a deep breath and looked down at me with his big and deep eyes and said, "what do you expect to happen if your brother kills one of us?"

I was shaking my head before the words could come out of my mouth. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Because you need to be prepared for what needs to happen if your brother crosses a line that can't be uncrossed."

"I'm sorry, what happened to your promise to never hurt him? What happened to you telling Sam fucking Uley to go fuck himself if he ever asked you to hurt Bear? What happened to that version of my boyfriend?"

Embry took another step towards me and he tried to take my hands in his but I couldn't stomach the thought of touching him while he was talking about what he was talking about. "Remy, your brother almost killed Quil. He wanted to kill me."

"No," I tried to say in a voice that was strong but I never felt weaker. "You're just using that as an excuse. You've always wanted to hurt him. You told me yourself! About that stupid instinct to hurt him whenever he's around me! You've always wanted to do this, at least subconsciously. Now you're just letting yourself admit it!"

He took a few deep breaths. He was trying to stay calm and he had these little tells when he was getting just a bit too angry, like when he would stop to breathe deeply or clench and unclench his hands or look up to the sky and it was just making me want to argue more. "I'm not the one starting this conflict. I'm not the one inciting fights. We're just trying to talk to him and he's the one that's violent. He's the one that's picking fights. How many times do we have to let him hurt one of us? How many times does he get to hurt one of us before he kills us? What if your half-baked plan to get the Cullen's to take him in doesn't work? What if he tries to hurt you?"

I almost laughed. "Don't use me as an excuse. Briah would never hurt me and you know that."

"You don't know what he'd do anymore," Embry said, and it was the first point he raised that I couldn't argue with. Because I didn't know Briah anymore and I didn't understand his motives but I knew that he was my brother and I had just gotten him back and now Embry was threatening to take him away from me again.

There were tears pooling in my eyes and I thought about how I told Embry I loved him and how I let him hold me while I slept and now he had this vile and violent look in his eyes and made me feel sick, throat thick and stomach churning like I drank motor oil. "So you'll do it then? So you'll go back on your promises to me?"

Embry was stone cold and stoic and suddenly that was all I'd ever known him as. "If I have to. If not doing it means someone else is gonna die."

"Then say it," I spat out, filled with disgust and rage and heartbreak and they all mixed together in this horrible cocktail and I thought I'd never get the taste of it out of my mouth.

"Look, Remy. I don't wanna do this. I love you, so much more than you'll ever know. And I don't wanna do anything that would hurt you," he said, his voice suddenly softening. But I was too gone for him to reach me with his gentleness now. "But if Briah had killed Quil today, if he had tried to kill me, or anyone else."

"Then say it," I repeated, patience growing thin. "Fucking say it, if you're gonna do it."

Embry paused. He took a deep breath. He held his hands in tight fists by his side. He looked down at me, eyes locked onto mine, and he said, slowly and confidently, "If I have to, if he makes me, I would kill Briah."

I wanted to hit him. I wanted to pull my fist back and plunge it into his nose and I wanted to scream until my mouth tasted like nothing but blood. I wanted to hurt Embry as much as he hurt me and I wanted him to never forget how it felt and I wanted it to burn into his skin the way it seared mine. And I thought he was expecting that. I thought he was looking at me like I was about to explode. Because I always exploded and Embry ran away and that's just how things were. But I was tired and heartbreak was something too heavy to carry. So I turned and I left and I didn't look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we’re Into It


	36. chapter thirty-six: the american spirits

A lit cigarette hung between my lips. An American Spirit, turquoise. I liked American Spirits the best, I thought, and if I gave the guy at the gas station a bright enough smile and swung my hips as I walked through the aisles, he'd slip me an extra pack. It was twilight, the sky a grey-blue that made me feel grounded. The concrete of Bobby's front steps dug into the skin on the bottom of my thighs, but the sleeve of my sweater protected the skin on my palm as I rested my weight on my hand. I inhaled, held my breath, and let the smoke flow out through my nose. I liked smoking. I liked it a lot. I liked the way it filled up my lungs and flowed through me and came out unaffected. It calmed me.

I kicked my leg up and dropped it down against the concrete again. My bare legs told a story. Small cuts from stumbling through the woods, red bug bites, bleeding from the way I picked at them, small bruises from stumbling and tumbling, big bruises from kickboxing and muay thai and fighting.

My hands were worse. I pulled the cigarette away from my lips and let it rest between my ring and middle fingers. My knuckles were, and always would be, a deep shade of purple, calloused and scarred and knocked out of place. Some of my fingers were crooked. I sighed. I was only seventeen.

I broke things. That's what I did. That was my schtick. I was Remy Cree and I broke things. It was always true and every time I thought the cracks were filled and the dust was settled I'd go ahead and break everything all over again. And what's worse was I was starting to get comfortable. I was thinking that it would be the last time I ruined something and that what I held in between my fingers wasn't fragile enough to be shattered. But I told myself that, if I had to, I would choose my brother over anything else. So that's what I did.

I would spend a lot of time in bed, curtains drawn and eyes heavy because I couldn't sleep and I heard Bobby on the phone a lot. She yelled, voice muffled through the walls and I didn't know what she was saying but I knew it was about me. I could tell from the way she would walk into the room and sit next to me without a word, she would just put her hand on my knee and squeeze.

And it was weird, because I thought I would want to pour back bottles and throw curled fists into a stranger's face because I was Remy Cree and that was what I did. But I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want the chaos to distract me from whatever I was feeling because I wasn't feeling anything and the only thing I wanted to do was sleep but I couldn't.

There was a version of me in the mirror that was new. A version of me this type of heartbreak unlocked. Heavy bags under my eyes and sagging skin and cracked and crusted lips. I didn't know what this was. But it felt like I had given up the person who made me feel a happiness I couldn't describe for Briah. Not even the Briah I knew to be my brother. But the new, shiny, scar-free Briah, with a silver-tongue and a talent for self-preservation. I didn't wanna think about it.

Tires rolled against the gravel, and the sight of a familiar truck rolling in made me snuff out the cigarette, twisting it against the concrete into a pile of black ash. Leah didn't like the smell of it. She complained about it every time she came around, about how it stuck to me and my clothes and rubbed off on Bobby. I didn't tell her that Bobby bummed a few off me every time she poured something extra into her drink.

I didn't look up when the sound of her door slamming made me flinch or when her footsteps grew closer. But when they stopped and she settled down next to me, our thighs brushing, I threw a glance in her direction. "Bobby's been getting ready since like, noon," I told her, brushing away the pile of ash with the tips of my fingers. "You should've told her where you're going. She had a breakdown trying to figure out what to wear."

Leah didn't say anything to that, just smirked, like that was exactly what she was expecting and exactly what she wanted to hear. I didn't blame her. I liked the way Leah riled up and humbled Bobby. "How you've been?" Leah asked, and I straightened up. There was one thing I really liked about Leah, and that was that she didn't pretend to care too much about me. I put on my face that I said I didn't wanna talk and she didn't talk to me. She didn't ask questions and she didn't prod.

I gave her a shrug, wrapping my arms around my knees and resting my chin on the top of them. I didn't like talking about it. I swallowed it. "I don't know," I told her. I didn't have the energy to fill her up with lies she would've seen through.

She sighed, leaning against the palm of her hands. "It smells like shit. You just smoke?" I nodded. "Y'know, Remy, I like you. You're a lot like Bobby and you're a lot like me and you're a lot like your brother."

I turned my head, eyes narrowed on her. "You knew my brother?"

Leah shrugged. "I knew him more than most people did," she told me, her voice a lighter tone than I was used to. Her eyes were somewhere else. "When me and Sam first broke up, we were close for a little, after that. He was a good friend."

"Nice to hear something good about him, for once," I mumbled, nestling my chin back against my knees. There was a beat of silence, and I turned back towards her. "Are you here to try and make me forgive Embry or something?"

She didn't say anything for a minute. She was turning her tongue around in her mouth like she's trying to decide if she should tell the truth or not. "I think that's what I was supposed to do," she admitted after a minute. "But I gotta be honest with you, Remy, your situation is just really, really shitty, and I feel bad for you."

I didn't know what to say to that. I sat on it for a minute. I didn't like the pity but I figured it meant something coming from her. "Thanks, I guess."

"It's kind of fucked up that you're not really talking about it," she added, a casualty in her voice meant to make me feel a little less on edge.

"I mean, would you?"

"I guess not," she acknowledged. "But I'm not exactly the poster child for coping with things in the healthiest ways."

I shrugged. "I did what I did and I said what I said and now I guess I just have to deal with it."

There was something more sharp and urgent in her tone when she said, "Listen, Remy, I get what you're doing. I do it all the time. I know why, too. It's better to be an emotionless bitch than to be someone who needs help. But like," she sighed, pausing and looking down and starting over, "I think you need to know that you're not wrong. And if it means anything at all, I really admire you for standing by your brother, no matter how much it ends up screwing you over."

"Yeah, it's not getting me much, is it?"

"And I just wanted to say that, I dunno, I'm sorry that this is happening to you," she concluded, looking at me with slighting pursed lips and a wideness in her eyes that struck something in me.

Neither one of us said anything after that. I turned my attention away from her and focused on the skin around my fingernails and pretending she wasn't sitting next to me. I didn't know how long it was before the front door opened behind us and Bobby stepped out with a string of complaints and curses. "How long have you been sitting out here?" she questioned, looking down at Leah as she ran her fingers through the length of her hair.

Leah smiled, and stood. "Not long." Something stretched in my gut when Leah wrapped her fingers around Bobby's and smiled down at me. "See you later, Rem."

Bobby looked down at me with soft eyes that I hadn't been able to get used to. "Love you, dummy."

"Love you too, Bobby. Don't have too much fun."

I stole Bobby's car. I didn't really feel bad about it. She left me the keys and I used it almost as much as her and it had just gotten to the point where I really didn't even ask. And I figured I could've just walked, but the sun had long set and I was looking for excuses to be lazy. I was coated in layers of exhaustion that hung on me like wet clothes.

Car Seat Headrest boomed through the speakers and I wondered what it was like to sit on the side of the road while I blasted past, doing fifty in a twenty while Will Toledo's drowned out voice bounced off the trees. I had barely left the house; I didn't really need to anymore. After I had dragged myself through the trees and back into the large house I had grown used to, only stepping outside for cigarette breaks and whatever shifts at that stupid fucking bakery I got slated with.

I didn't know where I was going until I was there, parked on the side of the road and breathing heavy. I hadn't seen Quil since he was lying on that couch, wet blood still spilling. I thought I needed to see him breathing and moving like normal.

For a minute I just twisted around in the front seat, tapping my thumbs against the steering wheel and peering around trees, trying to see if Quil's parents were around. After spotting a few cars in the driveway I sighed, sliding out of the driver's seat. If there was one person I didn't want to see, it was Joy Atera. I didn't feel like putting on my polite face and having forced conversation. I weaved through the trees that lined their driveway and popped out in the backyard.

Light shone through his window. I knew it was his. I spent too many hours of my childhood holed up in there with him while our parents laughed too loudly at the dining room table. We would fight over GameBoy rights and scream over video games and it was a time I didn't know I missed. I didn't realize I was staring and by the time I had snuck over to knock on the glass it had started to drizzle.

I watched him shoot into view at the sound of my rapping. His head whipped around before his gaze landed on me. I watched his eyebrows rise and then draw in and he frowned and stepped forward, flinging his window open in one swift movement. "What the hell are you doing out there?"

""M lonely," I replied, trying to downplay the patheticness in my own voice. I could hear it, loud and clear and whiny, like the self-pity had lodged itself in my throat.

His eyes softened, and he stepped away from the window, gesturing from me to climb in. I felt stupid, lifting my leg and collapsing inside of myself to fit through. And once my feet hit the ground I stumbled, and Quil grabbed onto my arm to steady me. His room was smaller than I remembered. Or I was bigger. Fabric softener and cotton Fabreeze was heavy in the air. Quil fell back onto his bed. "I heard you and Embry broke up." He had a wonderful way with sympathy.

There was a bean bag in the corner, like there always had been, and when I jumped into it dust flew into the air like I was the last person to sit in it. "How're you feeling?" I asked, ignoring his statement. I didn't know that me and Embry had broken up. It didn't feel like a break up, to me, at least. I didn't even think it was possible to break up with someone who you had a soul connection with.

Quil tossed his shoulders up. "Feels like nothing ever happened."

I scanned him, slumped up against his bed frame and his arm tucked behind his head. He seemed fine. He seemed normal. But when I looked at him I saw the gash and the blood and my stomach stirred. "Good. Would've sucked if you had died." He snorted. "Seriously, though, I'm glad you're okay."

He gave me a closed-mouth smile. "Thanks, Rem."

"Sorry I didn't come to see you sooner," I told him, pushing my thumbs together and refusing to make eye contact.

"'S okay," Quil shrugged. "I was better after a fourteen hour sleep and some heavy duty painkillers. That stuff fucks, by the way. And everyone's been hovering over me like I'm an injured World War II veteran." He paused, and I gave an empty chuckle. "Have you heard from Briah?"

The question made my stomach drop. "No. No texts or surprise drop ins or anything."

"Well, I did."

I blinked. "What?"

With a heavy sigh, Quil heaved himself up and moved over towards a pile of crumpled papers on his dresser. "Here," he said, pinching a piece of lined paper between his fingers and holding it out towards me. "Found this on my bed this morning."

Skeptical, I grabbed it from him. The handwriting was familiar but distant, not shaky and rushed but straightened out and too perfect, like a font. I swallowed. " _Quil, sorry about what happened. Wasn't supposed to go down like that. Think I need to be alone for a while. Tell Rem I'll be back when it's safe_." I turned the paper around, back and forth a few times, staring, eyes searching for more. "That's it?"

Quil grabbed it out of my hands again. "Thought he might've told you more or something."

And I was mad. I was mad at Briah and I clenched my fist and unclenched it and ground my teeth together until my jaw ached. And I tried to tell myself that I should just be grateful that he was alive to piss me off, but he was alive and pissing me off and gone. After everything I did for him and everything I would've done for him. "How is it possible that he's become an even bigger asshole in the afterlife?"

"I know I can't be the first one to bring this to your attention, but this whole thing kind of blows," he said, sitting back down at the edge of his bed. "I dunno how you're coping."

"I'm not," I told him, trying to sound like I wasn't as bothered as I was. "But the pity party everyone's been throwing me is helping."

"What've you been doing the past couple days, anyways?" he questioned, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

"Sulking, mostly," I answered, leaning deeper into the bean bag. It was easier being honest with Quil than it was being honest with Leah. It was the first time I had to say it outloud, because Bobby didn't even need to ask. "Picked up a couple of extra shifts at work and played Candy Crush for three hours. That was a dark time. What about you?"

"I dunno, same shit," he dismissed. "Embry's a mess."

My eyes narrowed at him. "I don't wanna hear it."

I could never decide if I wanted people to treat me delicately or not. It seemed like I wanted whatever they weren't doing. Because when Quil said, confidently and with no hint of sympathy in his voce, "That sucks, then. Cause I'm gonna talk about it," I thought about throttling him.

"Why?" I deadpanned.

"Because you're both being stupid and fighting over nothing," Quil asserted.

"He said he would kill my brother."

He rolled his eyes like I was being dramatic. "Embry's not gonna do that."

"He said it."

"Look, Remy," Big Brother Quil started, sighing and adjusting and looking at me like I was too young and stupid to understand, "you of all people should know that Embry's a little too severe for his own good. The kid basically had to be his own dad. He thinks it's his job to take care of you and me and everyone else he cares about."

"That's stupid."

"Stupider than getting into fist fights with strangers after drinking entire bottles of rum?"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever."

"Look, Embry's got the whole entire world on his shoulders and he thinks he has to choose between making you happy and protecting the rest of us," Quil explained. "And I'm not saying you're wrong for trying to protect Briah, but Embry's not wrong for trying to protect his brothers, either. You two didn't even try to meet in the middle."

My feet were tapping on the ground and I dug my canines into the flesh of my cheek. "I don't like compromising."

Quil laughed. "Well tough shit, Remy. That's what relationships are."

I squinted at him. "How would you know?"

"Because unlike you and Embry, I grew up with functional parents," he snarked, leaning back against the wall. My fingernails dug into my skin and suddenly I didn't know why I was there and I thought that maybe Embry had a point and leaving when things got tough was the best option. I stood. "Where are you going?"

"I didn't come here for tough love," I told him. "Too fragile for that now. I'll see you later."

I reached for his window and before I could twist myself up to fling myself out the window, Quil said, "If it makes you feel any better, I was way more harsh on Embry."

"Whatever," I replied, feet hitting the grass and unwilling to admit it did make me feel better.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> do u guys want my cryptid playlist


	37. chapter thirty-seven: the door

Things had been dull, and that in and of itself was unnerving. I went to work, I came home, spent time with Bobby when she was around and when she wasn't I went for runs and bothered Quil and taught myself how to cook and stole cigarettes from poorly attended convenience stores. When I stepped out the front door, my back didn't arch in at the crinkling feeling that someone was watching me. There was no rustling in the trees and no imminent danger. And I had gotten used to that ache in my chest, and if I didn't think about it, it was like I could go on, pretending it wasn't even there.

For about a week or so, everything was just so plain. And I fell into it so quickly, getting used to the way it felt underneath the budding summer sun. But I didn't forget. I couldn't forget and I looked around like something was going to change, like the normalcy would crack under my feet.

Before it did, Bobby held a ballpoint pen carefully in her hand, tracing the tip of it over my knee. I didn't know what she was drawing, she wouldn't let me look. "There's gonna be a snowstorm in the mountains tomorrow" she told me, voice muffled by concentration. "Wanna go skiing?"

I didn't look over at her. She would've hit me if I did, and the mothman documentary was enthralling enough. "Absolutely not," I replied, cheek resting against my hand.

She groaned, dropping her pen and letting it scatter to the floor. I looked over at her with a scrunched up brow. She pouted. "Well I wanna do something fun tomorrow. We haven't been doing anything but sitting on the couch and I am literally going insane. How are you so content?"

I shrugged. "I have really low expectations. But if you wanna do something, we can do something. I'm just hesitant to make plans with you cause you usually wanna go out with Leah."

There was a shaking and cartoonish looking middle finger on my knee. Bobby opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. "Sorry, new relationships are like that."

"I wouldn't know. Me and my boyfriend only talk every two weeks and every other conversation is an argument," I commented, attempting nonchalance but there was a thumping in my heart.

Bobby let her expression drop, eyes wide and sympathetic and her bottom lip in a pout. I knew what she was going to say. It wasn't the first time she said it and it wouldn't be the last. "Remy, are you sure you guys are still, like, y'know, together?"

I cracked my fingers against my bent knees and trained my eyes on the ground. The truth was I didn't know. It had seemed that everyone else was under the impression that Embry and I were done. But I had replayed that last argument over in my head hundreds of times, over and over, and there was nothing I said that was rash and damning enough to end a relationship over. I reeled over Embry's words and the argument Quil made to me. And I didn't think I was ready to forgive him but I was able to understand. It didn't feel like a done deal. It felt like a thread tugging at my chest, getting stronger the more time went on and the less angry I was. But I just wasn't ready. And I knew he wasn't either.

I couldn't explain the concept of imprinting to Bobby. I could barely understand it on my own. But I felt it constantly in the aching and I knew that there was something still there. I trusted my gut. I trusted it most. "I dunno," I shrugged, "If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I just don't think I am."

"Such a hopeful romantic," she lightly teased, earning a slight push from me. "Listen, let's get out of town tomorrow. We could go to Seattle and check out the pop culture museum, you could shoplift and beat up strangers for cigarettes and we could get sushi."

A grin broke out on my face. "Yeah, sure, sounds fun."

Bobby opened her mouth again, probably to break up our nice moment with something rude, but the shrill sound of my ringtone interrupted the silence. I squirmed around a little, trying to get the phone out of my back pocket. "God, if you're not gonna change your ringtone can you at least put that thing on silent? Everyone in the Pacific Northwest can probably hear that."

"Shut up," I told her with an eye roll, looking at the phone screen with downturned lips. "I don't know this number. Why do people keep talking to me? Hello?"

The voice on the other line was chilling, eerily soothing and unnaturally perfect. Goosebumps ran down my arm and I was perplexed at the way they could have this sort of effect even over the phone. "Hello, is this Remy Cree?"

"Uh," I stumbled, biting on the side of my cheek until I tasted blood. Bobby's stare was hard on me but I wouldn't look up to meet her gaze. "Yeah, it's Remy."

"Remy," he repeated my name again, now that it had been confirmed and it sounded worse this time, emotion in his tone sounding jerky and fabricated. "This is Dr. Cullen. I received your number from Bella."

For a second, I glanced up at Bobby, who hadn't moved an inch. I didn't know what he was about to tell me and I didn't know if she could hear. My nerves were electrified and stomach rolling. "What's, um, what's up?" I winced at the way I sounded.

There was a long pause on the other line, maybe just a couple of seconds, but the entire time it felt like my heart was dropping and never landing. And I stood, suddenly and in a way that made me dizzy. "I'll be right back," I told Bobby, walking away from her and out the door. There was no reason I could imagine for him calling me. Nothing good, at least.

When the door slammed behind me, his voice flooded my ears again and everything felt fuzzy. "Remy, I wanted to call and let you know that your brother is with us."

My throat was dry and the buzzing in my ears was almost deafening. For all I had known, Bear had fled. Bear was gone and off on his own. And all of the sudden everything was in overdrive. "Bear-Bear is with you?" I stumbled. "How? Since when? Wh-what happened?"

"He came to us, earlier today, and asked us if we would allow him to stay with him," he explained, voice calm and never jerky. Dr. Cullen spoke to me like he was diagnosing me, voice calm and assured though his words had heavy implications. "Briah, he seems very distraught."

I was all knotted up, dried and blanched. "Well, let me come and see him!" I pleaded, desperation clear in my voice. "I can be there in-"

"Remy," he cut me off, "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why?" I demanded with jagged harshness in my voice.

I counted up to six before he answered. I didn't like that he wasn't breathing on the other line, hyper aware of the fact I couldn't hear any inhales or exhales. "Briah is extremely erratic. Jasper was able to calm him down and get him to relax, but we're worried that any surprises might cause him to run. We want to give him some time to adjust before you come to see him."

I swallowed, mouth in a tight line. I fought the urge to argue. "Alright."

"Remy," he started, careful with his tone; everything about him was so practiced and calculated, "has Briah ever told you about anything that happened to him after he was bitten?"

"What do you mean?" I retorted, something familiar creeping in the edge of my voice and the pit of my gut.

"Had he ever told you who bit him? Or what happened in the time before you made contact with him?"

"No," I lied without a moment of hesitation. I didn't know what Bear had told them and I didn't know what he wanted them to know. I wouldn't rat him out to anyone for anything.

Silence, again, this time for twelve seconds. "Are you sure, Remy?"

"Yeah," I snapped back, "I'd remember if he told me he was with anyone. Why?"

"He asked us to protect him from Victoria, and he won't tell us anything more."

"Why do you need to know anything more than that?"

"Victoria is extremely skilled at self-preservation, Remy," he explained. And I knew there had to be some part of him that was frustrated at this conversation he was forced to have with me, explaining things that to him were commonplace and clear, but he didn't let it slip. "She wouldn't keep him around if he was a threat to her. I think, based off of our history with Victoria, it would be safe for us to know the nature of their relationship."

"Well, obviously they're not all buddy-buddy, if he's asking for protection from her. And why are you asking me? Can't one of your little cronies read minds?" I questioned, tapping my toe against the ground and looking behind me to make sure Bobby was listening in.

"It's a little more complicated than that," he replied, voice slower and lower. "Everything that Edward can gather seems manipulated, and he can't tell if his thoughts are real or not."

Blood pooled on my tongue. I didn't want to know what that meant. I didn't want to know what Bear's thoughts were like and if they couldn't gather the truth from it then I didn't want to know why. "Are you gonna do anything to him?"

His reply was quick and sure, "No, of course not. We just want to understand him, and what's happened to him."

I bit down on my bottom lip and said, "That won't happen, but thank you for taking him in. Can you just," I sighed, "will you let me know when I can come and see him?"

"Of course, Remy."

Pocketing my phone, I felt either drained or relieved. I didn't know if there was a difference or if maybe it was both. For a moment, I leaned my back against the door and breathed, trying to empty my thoughts and just figure out how to move my limbs around.

I didn't know what Bear was doing. I didn't know his end game. I knew that I was lying for him and that I would keep lying for him and I didn't know what I was lying about. It made me tired. It made me sore. Bear was running around weaving webs and I was trying to catch up.

Bobby hadn't moved from her spot and for a second I wondered what it was like to be her. To be in the darkness and know that she was in the darkness and to just be completely fine with it, it perplexed me. She watched me with narrowed eyes, pensive and contemplative. Maybe she knew more than she let on. Maybe she was figuring it out. Maybe I just looked like shit. "Who was that?" she questioned while I dropped into my spot next to her.

"Oh, um," my thumbs fiddled with each other and my throat felt tight, "it's weird family stuff."

"You wanna talk about it?" she offered.

"No, absolutely not."

"Alright. Wanna go get burgers?"

"Yeah, please."

* * *

A box of cigarettes was in my hand when the door knocked.

An eyebrow quirked. The sun had long set and Bobby's parents weren't home. Leah was upstairs, snoring loudly by Bobby's side, and that left very little options for who else could be on the other side. My stomach fluttered.

I shoved the cigarettes back in my pocket and felt that thread tugging on my chest, harder and harder and I opened the door with a shaking hand.

I didn't know if I was surprised to see Embry standing there, hands shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans and the hood of his sweatshirt casting a shadow over his eyes. But my gut lurched at the sight of him anyway. That physical reaction, it happened every time. I couldn't help it. I couldn't stop it and I couldn't deny that I felt something so strong for him.

"Oh, hey," I said, sounding lame and voice pitched up an octave.

Something that wasn't quite a smirk but wasn't quite a smile played on his lips. "Hey Remy."

I wrapped my hand around the edge of the door and leaned against it. I thought I needed support. "Um, what's up?"

I wanted to kick myself for thinking about the sharpness in his jaw and the shine in his eyes while he looked down at his feet and back up at me. "I just wanted to make sure you're alright."

"Alright, I guess," I nodded, tapping my fingers against the door. Embry kept looking at me. He didn't really look at me, when we talked like that. He looked at his feet and at the sky and at anything but me. But his eyes were fixated on mine when I spoke and I realized that I couldn't look away either. I missed him. I looked at him like this would be my last time. "All things considered. You?"

"Alright," he replied, licking his lips, "all things considered."

"Nice."

Being near him for the first time in over a week was making me shake. My nerves were shot and I felt dumb, walls crumbled and dusty. I didn't know how to act around him. I had never been in a situation like that before. Embry had seen me in ways no one else had ever seen me and that made the distance between us seem thicker, heavier. There was something between us and I wanted to reach for him but I remembered the words that came out his mouth and mine and out of nowhere I wanted to cry.

"Um, tomorrow, it would be better if you just, if you stayed inside or got out of town or something," he suggested, reaching his hand out toward me, and then pulled it back. I tilted my head. "Leeches incoming."

"Oh, right. Well, me and Bobby are going to Seattle, actually. Leaving tomorrow morning and spending the day," I told him, gnawing on the soft flesh on my cheek.

"That's great! Yeah, that's um, yeah that'll be good," Embry stammered. "You'll be safe?"

"Yeah, I think I can handle it."

"Good."

"Yeah."

I nodded, looking away from him and down at my feet. I figured this would be when he left but I didn't have the nerve to ask him to stay. Words and sentences floated around in my head but nothing came out. I stepped back, moving the door back, and then forth again and I leaned my forehead against it. My breathing was shallow. Emrby stood still, watching me.

"Listen, Remy," he started, taking a step toward me and then another one back, "I really wanted to apologize for what I said. It was fucked up, to talk to you like that. That day I was just, everything was really messed up and my head wasn't right and-"

"Hey, I get it," I interrupted with a whisper, voice thick.

Embry looked at me with wide eyes and his lips slightly agape. "You do?"

I nodded, swallowing. "Your best friend was hurt, and I can't imagine what it was like to sit there while-" Embry paled, jaw clenching and breath halting. I stopped, exhaled and tried to push the screaming from my mind. "And, I mean, if I was in your place, I don't know what I would've done. I don't think my reaction would've been as tame as yours."

Embry looked at me with wet eyes and a down turned mouth. "I'm in a shitty position."

"I know you are. I am too."

"I know."

It was overwhelming, the urge to touch him, to be in his hold again. There was nothing else that felt like that. And I couldn't push it out of my head, how safe I felt, how warm I felt, how loved I felt. But I couldn't move. I didn't know what he wanted. I wanted to ask. I didn't. "This shitty situation, it's not gonna last forever, though," I told him, subversive and careful and desperate.

"No, I guess it's not," Embry agreed. I searched his eyes and he searched mine and I thought about only what I wanted. It was like I was drunk. "I do, I do miss you a lot."

"Yeah, I miss you a lot too."

"I wanna," he started, and then paused. He took a step towards me and this time stayed there. I could smell him, pine and spice and warmth. "I think we should talk after this thing tomorrow. And we can figure everything out."

I nodded. "You're gonna be safe tomorrow?"

"Yeah, of course," Embry assured me, smiling slightly. "No question."

I bit down on my bottom lip. "I'm worried about you."

"I'll be okay. Everything will be okay, alright?"

"Promise?"

And then he took a step towards me, a step inside the house and he put his hand on my shoulder. My breath halted. I forgot how warm he was. I forgot how he made me melt. "Promise, Remy. We're gonna be okay."

"Call me tomorrow night, then."

"I will." He placed a kiss on my forehead. I closed my eyes. I wanted it to last. "Of course I will."

* * *

My hair was wet, soaking wet. Clumped up together and my shirt was soaking it all up. It was the longest it had ever been and I hadn't even brushed it out yet. Rose soap wafted in the air. We were late. "Bobby!" I screamed up the stairs, trying to combat the distance and the running water of her shower. "Hurry up!"

If she responded, I didn't hear it. I was already pulling a cigarette out the carton and stepping outside, barefoot and underdressed, wearing gym shorts and a shirt of Embry's that fell to the middle of my thighs. I was feeling better. I was feeling different, lighter and electrified.

The morning air felt cool. It sent shivers through me as I brought the cigarette to my lips and lit the lighter. Grass tickled against the bottom of my bare feet and the dew flicked up against my shins. The sun had barely risen and I was feeling more awake than I had in weeks. Bear was with the Cullens. Embry had apologized. Quil was okay. Everything was okay.

Smoke clouded around me. I'd have to quit again. Embry wouldn't like it. And I knew that I didn't have to listen to him but the thought of him being disgusted with anything I did made me want to stomp the one between my fingers into the ground. So I'd do it.

I thought about kissing him again. I thought about Bear getting better. I thought about the redhead problem and how it would end today. I thought about it and I smiled and laughed and I felt something hard like concrete slam into my side and I felt the breath get knocked out of my lungs.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can’t believe this is already chapter thirty-seven. this took me over a year to write and now it’s almost over. feeling very sentimental. next chap is wild lmao

**Author's Note:**

> this is cross-posted on fanfiction.net


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